Choice Lit Topic: Community Building
It’s one of the big paradoxes of literacy instruction – students best learn how to read and write independently when they have a strong community of support in classrooms. How teachers build those thoughtful, kind, and challenging classroom communities is explained in these resources.
Results
Reminder Notes
This sweet invitation—"you can come to my basketball game"—greets me after children have been dismissed for the day and I’m cleaning up my teaching area. It is common to find...
Read-Aloud Gone Awry
Some years back, I was reading a book aloud to my seventh graders. We weren’t yet to the halfway point, and I was happily enjoying the whole thing—I loved the...
In Search of Just-Right Reading Spots
Think about your favorite reading spot. Maybe it’s the lounge chair by the window, the recliner in the den, or the rocking chair on the porch. Whatever and wherever it...
Supporting Brave Writers
Say what you wanna say, and let the words fall out. —Sara Bareilles, "Brave" Usually, when we look at the on-demand writing prompts that we give our fourth graders as...
Introverts and Reading Share Sessions
In this brief video from a reading share session in first grade, Katie DiCesare has three students describe strategies they used during reading workshop.
Creating a Culture of Book Love
Readers are made, not born. Few students spring out of the ground fully formed as readers. They need help, and we cannot assume that they will get it from home,...
An Identity of Success
In the first few days of school, I overheard teachers, fingers hovering over electronic tablets, warning students who weren’t standing quietly enough in line that they would be losing points...
An Unconventional Scavenger Hunt: Finding Errors
I have always been flummoxed when I see simple, silly errors in grammar and spelling that is presented to the public—particularly when done by professionals. From advertising to journalistic print,...
Guidelines for Posting Online
Katherine Sokolowski describes a wall display with guidelines to ensure students are respectful and aware of the pitfalls of posting online.
Padlet Possibilities
Far and away the most-used technology resource in my fifth-grade classroom is Padlet. Padlet is simply a website. I think of it as an online bulletin board. There are two...
Better Mondays Through Quick-Writes
It was one of those Mondays. My students came to me with that glazed-over, deer-in-the-headlights look, and it didn’t seem like they were going to engage with me. I asked...
Opening the Year with Optimism
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Henry David Thoreau In early August I invited my students from last year to meet up with...
Critical Thinking and Captain Underpants
Unfortunately, middle school students who are considered struggling readers are often treated as if they are also struggling thinkers. However, in my experience the two rarely go hand in hand....
Who Owns the Room?
A professor in my graduate work in elementary education taught me many years ago to look at the classroom and ask, “Who owns the room?” She cautioned that it was...
“What Are We Learning Today?”: Transitioning with Compelling Questions
"What are we learning today?" I used to hear this every day, every class period, from at least half of my seventh-grade social studies students. It was frustrating. I used...
Transition Time in Middle School
In the past year, I’ve started taking what my husband calls “insanely hard workout classes.” I’ve never sweated so intensely, cursed (usually silently) so frequently, or struggled so mightily to...
Making the Most of Transitions
If you’re anything like us, September is exciting in its newness. It can also be challenging because of your memory of what it’s like to teach the kids you taught...
Reflective Transitions
Christy Rush-Levine helps her eighth-grade students launch the work period with a reflective question, and then returns to it throughout the morning during transition times.
Building a Writing Community in Middle School
In this 12-minute video, Katie Doherty leads her sixth-grade students as they try the prompt "I am the one who . . ." during writing workshop. This is an excellent activity for building classroom community.
Creating a Space for Peace
A week after winter break, there were more tears than smiles in my classroom. Like most first-grade classrooms, we had our share of disagreements and upset feelings, but the difference...
Student Interest Board
Katherine Sokolowski shares a wall display from her fifth graders that students build to celebrate who they are and people they love from home.
