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.
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Two or Three Things I Know for Sure: A Teacher Workshop Activity
"Two or Three Things I Know for Sure" is a writing and discussion activity designed to help teachers write about and explain their bedrock beliefs about teaching or other related...
Teacher/Principal Conferring: Reflecting on Readers’ Notebooks
In this conference, Principal Karen Szymusiak and 5th grade teacher Liz Cramer discuss the ways Liz uses readers' notebooks in her classroom. Before the conference, Karen spends an evening reading...
The Conversations Inspired by the Questions We Ask
The most effective way to develop a common understanding of classroom practice may be the questions we choose to ask. As literacy leaders it is often difficult to express clear...
Solving Problems Quote Collection
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. Abraham Maslow Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to...
Open Book Clubs
Monroe School was very pleased with their literacy instructional program. The students were encouraged to read independently and kept track of the books that they were reading in reading logs....
Putting Ourselves in Our Teaching
It's important to know that even if you don't think of yourself as a particularly reflective person, or someone who naturally puts your thinking on display, it doesn't mean that...
Student Reading Interview: Assessing Ana Part 2
This is the second video in a two-part series. Principal Karen Szymusiak interviewed Ana, a second grader, to learn more about her strengths and needs as a reader. In this...
Creating a Reflective Culture in Classrooms
Have you ever been part of a school culture where you've been asked to consider issues that affect you directly? Maybe it's about vertical planning, or ways to increase parent...
Collecting Stories: Opening Activity and Icebreaker (PRINT DOWNLOAD)
The "Collecting Stories" activity is a great way to launch a workshop or new study group on a topic. The one I designed here was used with participants in a...
Looking Back to Move Forward: The Plan Book Scavenger Hunt for Literacy Leaders
It's 5:30 in the afternoon, and the school improvement team meeting for one of my buildings is concluding. My principal remarks that there are only sixteen days of school left....
Literacy Chats with Teachers: Routines and Guidelines
In my school, teachers have monthly "literacy chats" to discuss current trends and issues that arise in our classrooms. These are informal discussions designed to help us build a supportive...
Literacy Coaching Interview Rubric
The "Literacy Coaching Interview Rubric" was designed collaboratively with colleagues who are preparing to become literacy coaches. We talked through the different philosophies in school communities about the purposes and...
Finding Words: Linking Community and Classrooms
Principal Karen Szymusiak and 3rd Grade Teacher/Literacy Coach Pam Hahlen do a quick word search activity using dictionaries donated to the classroom by a local service club.
Mentor Interviews — A Protocol of Questions
Fall is a time when many novice and seasoned teachers begin mentoring relationships. But what do the mentors expect from this partnership? And how might their expectations differ from those...
January New Teacher Group Update: When Life Happens
It was noontime when I received a call from my daycare provider, Sandy. She told me that my daughter, Samantha was coughing a lot. I had an important meeting scheduled...
Watching Teachers Teach: An Observation Form for Literacy Coaches
Early in my first year as a literacy coach, I tried to go into classrooms to watch teachers teach. I wanted to know what was happening in classrooms, and I...
New Teacher Conversations: Management Stories from the Classroom
Classroom management was on the new teachers' minds at our last meeting of the year when we asked them what they would like from us for resources and discussion the...
The Language of Coaching Part I: Word Choices
Giving written and spoken feedback is an opportunity to be very thoughtful about the words we choose in communicating with teachers. This is a challenge. There are nuances to our...
How Study Groups Are Like Self-Cleaning Ovens
One of our favorite inventions ever is the self-cleaning oven. Set a timer, lock the oven door, and a few hours later -- voila! You have a clean oven, and...
The Language of Coaching Part II: The Leading Edge
Peter Johnston has written an entire book about the subtleties of our communications. In Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning (Stenhouse, 2004), Johnston explores the places where work is partially...
Literacy Chats: An Open Discussion Format
In my school, the teachers have monthly "literacy chats" to discuss current trends and issues that arise in our classrooms. These are informal discussions designed to help us build a...
