Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Do the Hard Thing
As I prepared to give my graduate students the closing remarks for our first semester together, I found myself in a moment of reflection. When I was sitting in their...
February 17, 2023: Literacy Toolkits and Meaningful Lessons
Facts can be helpful, but rarely are they soulful. —Bob Goff Soulful In my opening keynote for CCIRA, one of the statistics I shared is that on average human knowledge...
Moving Beyond Asking Questions
If you have ever spent more than 1½ minutes in a kindergarten classroom or been on a car ride with a toddler, you know we don’t have to teach kids...
Literacy Tool Kits
Literacy Tool Kits For many years my students have had math tool kits—a plastic box full of manipulatives to use when completing math activities. These manipulatives have provided a way...
Building Independence in Problem Solving
It is the third day of school, and Mrs. Gonzalez is introducing a task called Sealed Solution to her students. There are 10 cards, each with a number 0–9. The...
February 10, 2023: Rural Education
It's our roots that really give us our identity. —Rosalia Deep Roots of Rural Life Recently I was working with a group of middle school writers and found myself drawing...
February 3, 2023: Informational Writing
Write what you know. —Mark Twain Everyone Writes Nonfiction I have a soft spot for nonfiction writers. My reading life has a steady diet of nonfiction, and I am addicted...
Rural Communities
After three years teaching in a private school in Louisville, I moved back to the small county in rural Kentucky where I grew up, and accepted a job teaching freshman...
Exploring Rural Literature—A Middle-Grade Booklist
As the Indiana Rural Teacher of the Year, I attended the annual National Forum to Advance Rural Education last October. I looked through the conference program to plan my day...
Rural Matters: Revealing Perceptions and Celebrating Roots
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you either teach rural students or were a rural student yourself. According to a research study conducted in 2019, “Nearly...
Good Work, Writer
I ring the chimes in our meeting area, and the hubbub of excited voices comes to a halt, students' hands go to their heads, and their eyes turn to me....
January 27, 2023: Powerful and Fun(!) Assessment
It's kind of fun to do the impossible. —Walt Disney Powerful and Fun(!) Assessment Hands up if you've ever been to a data meeting. Unless you retired from teaching while...
Assessing High School Readers
Secondary instructional coach Holly Wenning shares ways to assess high school readers.
Assessment in Classroom Book Clubs
Once books are selected, groups are arranged, and reading begins, it is time to think about assessment. Because I work in a district that requires grades, I cannot spend four...
Letting Informational Mentors Lead the Way
After reading Albert Marrin’s book Oh, Rats!, our sixth graders possess some fascinating knowledge about rats, revealed to them through a wide variety of details that range from absolutely repulsive...
One-Page Reading Response: A Simple Approach to Complex Assessment
After a school year filled with literary analysis essays, I was looking for another way my sixth graders could share textual analysis. I came across “A Simple Trick for Success...
January 20, 2023: Story Elements and Author Studies
Purr more; hiss less. —Linda C. Marchman Skin a Cat? "There's more than one way to skin a cat! That's what he said to me! Can you believe it? I'm...
Identifying Story Elements
Well, that’s interesting, I thought as I thumbed through the completed set of plot diagrams in my hand. We were using plot diagrams to help students track the events of...
Implementing Classroom Book Clubs (Part Two)
Once book clubs have been established and a reading plan is created, it is time to begin reading. The first round of book clubs begins after independent reading has been...
January 13, 2023: Novels in Verse, Book Clubs, and More
In a turbulent world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. —Adam Grant The Ability to Rethink On Fridays I take...
Teaching Readers Rather Than Teaching Books
Secondary instructional coach Holly Wenning shares her own paradigm shift of teaching readers rather than teaching books, and encourages all teachers to consider the importance of putting students before books...
