Choice Lit Topic: Leadership
Do you guide teachers, specialists, and literacy coaches? Here are tools, advice, and strategies school leaders need for their daily work in staff meetings, study groups, and one-on-one discussions with colleagues. If you have a leadership role in coaching teachers and designing professional development, you’ll want an upgraded membership with access to our Leaders Lounge.
Results
Lesson Structure: Building a Strong Foundation
The experts will tell you, "Add sand to water, but not water to sand," when building structures on the beach. You must have a strong foundation for a sculpture that...
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan on Getting the Most Out of Grade-Level Team Meetings (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan, the founders of Teachers for Teachers, talk with Franki Sibberson about how to link grade level team meetings with student achievement, and...
Whole-Group Share Sessions in Literacy Workshops: Essential Elements
We survey teachers periodically to help us reflect on our professional development sessions, and plan next steps for our coaching. Recently, we have noticed a pattern in the reflections of...
What’s Good for the Goslings is Good for the Geese: Parallels Between Scaffolding Student Learning and Scaffolding Staff Development
"So, what are you working on now?" This is a question I seem to get a lot and despite years of practice, it's always a tricky one. You see, I...
Photovoice: Exploring Content Literacy with Images
How does your expertise function? During the past year, I posed this question to a study group comprising fifth- through eighth-grade teachers whose focus was on disciplinary literacies. We were...
Walk Arounds: Gathering Data to Test Assumptions
As an instructional leader I am subjected to tattling. You are probably assuming I mean tattling on the part of children, but you'd be surprised. I am referring to teachers...
Common Core Conversations: The Half ‘n’ Half Shift for Nonfiction Reading and Writing
As teacher leaders in a state that already has rigorous standards, the thought of transitioning from our district standards to new standards is daunting. We can just hear the cry...
Ready for Guided Reading? A Second Look
Once you've written something, it is out there - forever. Thankfully, we keep growing and changing. We gain more insights, experience, and knowledge. But sometimes this makes us wish that...
The Power of Linking Words and Perceptions
The school year is underway, and all across the country teachers have undoubtedly already identified the children in their classrooms who are going to give them a run for their...
From Hearing to Listening
Being an active listener is hard for some of us. It would be great if we were all genetically programmed to not plan what we are going to say as...
Coaching Monkey
As a kid, Curious George was my hero. Sometimes I had to cover my eyes when he was about to get into trouble, but I knew in the end he'd...
Virtually Coaching a Lesson
I'd known Chad for about two months when his first observation was scheduled. Chad had shared with me that he didn't feel like his new principal understood him. Even though...
Tips from Literacy Leaders for Closing Out the School Year (ROUND-UP)
Here are some suggestions from Choice Literacy Contributors of the best ways to close out the year, with everything from personal organizing tips to family events. Heather Rader, Instructional Coach...
Not That Into Me
For the past 11 years during the holiday season my husband and I have watched the movie Trapped in Paradise with my brother. The movie stars Nicholas Cage, Dana Carvey and Jon...
Ubiquitous Venns, Watch Fors, and Leverage Points: Coaching for Depth
Ubiquitous Venns Ubiquitous Venns -- you see them everywhere. Those friendly overlapping circles. Some are hand-drawn and look more elliptical than circular, and the intersection is never large enough for...
Rethinking Mentor Texts
I know. That title kind of makes your heart skip a beat, doesn't it? Imagine how I felt when I read it in a National Council of Teachers of English...
What Matters Most: A Conversation with Samantha Bennett (PODCAST)
Samantha Bennett is the author of That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think, and works with teachers and literacy leaders across the country to...
Getting the Most Out of Visiting a Colleague’s Classroom (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Tammy Mulligan and Clare Landrigan chat with Franki Sibberson about how teachers can get the most out of observing a colleague's classroom. A full transcript is below...
Virtual Book Clubs for Teachers
My first encounter with a virtual book club was about three years ago. My regular, run-of-the-mill, face-to-face book club was on a field trip. We were taking a tour of...
An Attitude of Gratitude
When my daughter Ahna was in first grade, she secretly stuck a note in my purse that read I hope you have an extcnt day Mom. Spis! (Translation: I hope...
Transitioning to Guide on the Side: Facilitating Collaborative Scoring
"I want to move as much of my professional development from sage on the stage to guide on the side," I wrote as my goal for the coming year. For...
