Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Using Writing Notebooks Authentically with My Fifth-Grade Students
When I first began teaching writing workshop, I was told that my students needed to keep a writer's notebook. Back then, I was the kind of teacher who liked to...
My Middle Schoolers Still Can’t Spell!: Focusing on Individual Students
It had become my stubborn mission to get a handle on spelling while we had had a small taste of success. After a month of thoughtfully planned small-group intervention, students...
Rethinking Grammar Instruction in High School
It’s easy for an English teacher to get overwhelmed by the grammatical errors that turn up in student writing. Something about the nature of English teachers makes us want to...
The Big Fresh October 11, 2014 What We Take Away
What we remember from childhood we remember forever -- permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen. Cynthia Ozick My father always told me, "The one thing no one can...
Conferring About the Author
Beth Lawson confers with a fourth grader about her "about the author" blurb, a great chance to learn more about students' home passions.
Writing Homework
Five years ago, I began using the workshop method in my reading and writing classes. Since that time, my nightly reading homework has been the same: read a book of...
The Power of Reading Habits
This year, for the first time in my career, I taught teenagers—seventh graders whose reading, thanks to a looping arrangement, I’d been able to nurture the previous year. The heart...
Helping Parents Talk with Students
My educational work as a tutor brings me into contact with parents. These are parents with children who struggle, and literacy learning is a challenge. I am entrusted to intervene...
The Big Fresh October 4, 2014 Duct Tape Magic
The mind once expanded with the knowledge of duct tape never returns to its original size. ...
Word Work Basics
Could it be that children teach us more than we teach them? Many years ago, a Reading Recovery student, Derek, shaped the way I think about words. While rereading a...
My Middle Schoolers Can’t Spell!
Dear Mrs. Taylor, I have a lot of concerns with John’s spelling. His previous teachers haven’t been worried, but I’m concerned about the volume of spelling mistakes that he still...
Student-Generated Blends Chart in First Grade
At the start of each year, my first-grade students and I often sit down together near our chart stand to practice interactive writing. They sit clumped on the floor with...
Introducing Onomatopoeia Minilesson
Christi Overman introduces onomatopoeia to her second graders in this brief minilesson.
The Big Fresh September 27, 2014 Walk and Talk
Walking is good for solving problems -- it's like the feet are little psychiatrists. Terri Guillemets I've been reading lately about the craze of counting steps, and it's likely...
Close Reading and Multiple Layers in Middle School
My eighth-grade students read to master literacy standards. Though this goal is always on my mind, I prefer for my students to forget they are reading as a means of...
“Lift a Line” Boys Reading Group
Franki Sibberson gives a group of boys a "lift a line" assignment to build their close reading skills.
Spreading Out the Fun
Upon the completion of each school year, I always have the same feeling: I want to start over again right away so that this time I might get things “right.”...
Using Close Reading to Analyze Propaganda
Dystopian literature was wildly popular in my sixth-grade classroom last year, and I anticipate it will continue to be, so I decided to capture that enthusiasm and build a unit...
The Big Fresh September 20, 2014 Chinese Food
I just love Chinese food. My favorite dish is number 27. Clement Atlee Not long ago, I spent the morning with a colleague completing a long and arduous online...
What Kenny Taught Me
A language arts classroom can be a difficult place for young learners who struggle to sit quietly. Tradition tells us that in a school setting, reading and writing requires focus,...
Can Books Harm Children? Support and Censorship
I recently read a blog entry written by a young adult author, Andrew Smith. He told of enduring a negative media storm around his book Marbury Lens. Responders believed that “harm...
