Choice Lit Topic: Teacher Study Groups
Teacher study groups are as diverse as the teachers who participate in them. They can be an informal, low-key coffee klatch designed to relieve the daily stress of teaching. They can be highly structured inquiry groups, with detailed expectations for participants. Most study groups are likely somewhere between these two extremes, with colleagues getting together regularly to discuss books, view videos, and support each other as they test out new literacy instruction strategies in their classrooms. We include a few examples of study groups in the Choice Literacy library. If you regularly lead these groups, you’ll want a membership that includes the Leaders Lounge.
Here is where you will find advice from study group leaders who coordinate book groups, design workshop formats for groups, and develop structures for helping colleagues transfer the learning in study groups to the learning in their classrooms.
Results
What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About . . . ?
We've been meeting each week this spring with a group of teachers pre-K through grade 12, all of us exploring literacy teaching in our classrooms around our teacher research questions....
Remote Coaching Videos
We know our subscribers who are literacy coaches have a pressing need for resources to use in remote coaching contexts, as well as in college courses that are being moved...
Odd Habits
Here at Choice Literacy, we’ve got habits on our mind. Ever since we read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg at a writing retreat, we’ve been thinking about how...
Finding the “Ex” Factor in Explanatory Writing
Explanatory writing isn’t as simple to define as it sounds. Recently there has been an explosion of conversation about explanatory writing and the way it feeds argument writing. Explanatory writing...
Word Nerds
Write down a synonym for the following words or use them in a sentence if you can: 1. girn 2. fug 3. hircine 4. yerd 5. sesamoid Did you try...
Notes from the Mad Teachers Liberation Front: Create Your Manifesto
Summer can be a fine time to renew, refresh, and recommit to our passions and ideals. When a group of teachers here in Oregon, who work with children and young...
Introducing the Common Core Standards in Writing (Part 2)
We began our morning with this objective: “We will read, unwrap and reflect on the ten Common Core State Standards related to writing and the first three language standards. We...
Introducing the Writing Common Core Standards: Planning for Professional Development
When I began to plan for how introducing the Common Core State Standards in Writing with a key group of leaders in our district, I kept these words of wisdom...
Assessment and Curriculum Mapping
In this video from a new teacher study group for grades 3-5 teachers, Jennifer Allen demonstrates how teachers can use assessment data to develop instructional plans for individual students, and create curriculum maps for an entire class.
Literacy Chats: An Open Discussion Format
Principal Karen Szymusiak and Literacy Coach Pam Hahlen meet with grades K-2 teachers to discuss current literacy concerns. Topics include reading workshop and classroom environments.
Literacy Chats with Teachers: Routines and Guidelines
Principal Karen Szymusiak and Literacy Coach Pam Hahlen meet with grades 3-5 teachers to discuss current literacy concerns. Topics include reading workshop and connections across the intermediate grades.
Professional Development Openers and Icebreakers (ROUND-UP)
Experts on presentations once said that you had 30 seconds to capture the attention of your audience. Other experts now say you have the attention of the audience in the...
Exit Slips Open Doors
"It doesn't have to end here." So claims the Powerpoint slide at the end of my professional development classes in the past. With this statement, along with my contact information...
Literacy Team Meeting: Focus on Word Work Part 2
In the second part of the literacy team meeting, teachers on the team move from the focus on sharing, to the important phase of where to go next as a...
Second-Grade Team Meeting: Helping Students Choose Books Independently
In this five-minute excerpt from a second-grade team meeting, Principal Karen Szymusiak sits in on a discussion about the challenges of helping young readers learn to pick appropriate books independently....
Planning for a Demonstration Lesson Part 2
In this second installment of a two-part video series, Clare Landrigan takes a team of grades 3-5 teachers through the steps of selecting a book for a demonstration lesson.
What Can You Learn from Slice of Life Writing?
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. —Jim Ryun Writing on a regular basis is a tough habit to develop. There are many things vying...
The Superpower of Reflecting
What is your superpower? Are you a great listener, storyteller, misconception spotter, advocate, or feedback giver? Educators have a multitude of superpowers, and we'll focus here on one that takes...
What’s the Evidence?
The first and most brutal fact that must be confronted in creating professional learning communities is that the task is not merely challenging: it is daunting. It is disingenuous to...
Off the Dance Floor and Onto the Balcony: Getting the Big Picture in Schools
We coordinate professional development efforts in schools. Periodically we visit classrooms during literacy blocks to think about how we are progressing toward our goals, and to identify next steps for...
Poetry Fridays (and So Much More) for Students and Staff
Poetry Friday is surely my most subversive act of teaching. From the outside, you see a suspension of the regular routines of reading workshop. You see children sitting side-by-side with...
