Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
Writing Interviews: Part 2
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as writers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What's something you do...
The Big Fresh April 26, 2014 Are We Still Serving Hamburgers?
Instead of focusing on the circumstances that you cannot change - focus strongly and powerfully on the circumstances that you can. Joy Page Years ago, I was awarded a...
The Gifts of Literacy
“I will miss you all the way to heaven and back.” Peyton modified one of my favorite lines in children’s literature in a way that both revealed a surprising depth...
Making Summer Reading Plans
Just like we prepare for summer—cleaning the barbecue grill, planting a garden, cleaning closets, or making vacation plans—readers prepare for summer too. Each June we teach one final unit of...
Reading Interviews: Part 1
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What's a book you...
Writing Interviews: Part 1
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as writers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What writing from this...
The Big Fresh April 19, 2014 Spammer for a Day
Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures -- in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing...
Getting Books into Students’ Hands for Summer Reading
When we read the Richard Allington and Ann McGill article "Why Summers Matter in the Rich/Poor Achievement Gap," two important points about summer reading stood out to us: Summer reading loss...
Reading Through Spring
Most school districts have a spring vacation. Here in the Northeast our vacation is in late April. After a long, cold, and snow-filled winter, people are eager to get outside...
End-of-Year Literacy Interviews
When we turn the corner into the warm days of spring and early summer, teachers’ thoughts turn to that final countdown. We wonder if we’ll have time for all that...
April Literacy Contracts: Discovery
Since April is National Poetry Month, we have incorporated novels in verse and poetry anthologies for our reading focus, and students will be creating their own poetry reflection books. Poetry...
Conferring About Independent Reading
Karen Terlecky confers with fifth grader Alex about making wise choices during independent reading time.
The Big Fresh April 12, 2014 An Average Overachiever
Always live up to your standards - by lowering them, if necessary. Mignon McLaughlin Being an overachiever is my strength and my weakness. I think that is true for...
The Big Fresh April 5, 2014 Smart Board
Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them....
Remembering to Slow Down at the End of the School Year
Life moves quickly for all of us. But as I listen to my students share all of the activities they are involved in every day I realize that it is...
Phrasal Verbs and English Language Learners
Most of us don’t think about phrasal verbs all that often. Yet, to a student with limited English proficiency, phrasal verbs can be bewildering and can lead to misunderstanding when...
Working with Emergent Bilingual Children (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Heather Rader chats with Ruth Shagoury about working with emergent bilingual chidren and their families. Ruth is the co-author (with Andie Cunningham) of Starting with Comprehension. She...
Connecting Nonfiction Reading and Writing: Conferring with Hermione
Stella Villalba confers with first grader Hermione as she writes a nonfiction text and researches her topic.
Nonfiction and English Language Learners
The Common Core is a part of our teaching lives now. The amount of nonfiction reading our English language learners will be doing nudges all of us to be not...
Connecting Class Social Media in Eight Simple Steps
I have always wanted to have a great class blog, one that parents check daily so they can see all the cool things that we are doing in class. This...
Creating Video with Students: Tools and Tips
During my many years in the English classroom, I often tried to capture my students’ interest and help to depict their interpretation of the literature and topics we covered by...
