Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
Student Notes: Keeping Track of Many Characters
Tre uses lots of sticky notes to sort through and keep track of characters in The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, a book with a whole classroom full of...
The Big Fresh June 2, 2018 Memory
Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist. Guy de Maupassant There I was, undeniably at my...
Conference Records That Stay with Kids
As I waited for the transition to writing workshop, I looked around the kindergarten classroom. It was packed! Not only were class sizes large—34 five-year-olds had prepared their desks for...
Student Notes: Experimenting with Two Strategies
Ally explains how she tested two different ways to take notes during independent reading.
Conferring Notes
I have a crazy, multifaceted system for keeping track of our grocery list at our house. My system is part digital, using the Google Keep app on my iPhone. I...
Conferring: Establishing a Setting in a Novel
Aimee Buckner confers with Chad, a fourth grader who has a dilemma: how to figure out the setting in a historical fiction novel when there are no pictures.
The Big Fresh May 26, 2018 Everyday Subversions
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. Abbie Hoffman Earlier this month I visited Franki Sibberson’s fifth-grade classroom in Dublin, Ohio. She began a writing...
Launching a Historical Fiction Genre Study
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity. ...
Content and Context
For years, my tennis partner tried to get me to change the grip on my forehand volley. She’d rotate my hand, we’d hit a few, and then we’d move into...
Leads Minilesson
This fifth-grade minilesson from Franki Sibberson is a lovely mix of mentor texts, Franki's own writing, and honesty about the writing process.
The Big Fresh May 19, 2018 Style
Fashion changes, but style endures. Coco Chanel I recently went to a presentation on developing a company style guide. I thought it would be about Oxford commas, and was...
Rethinking Spring Assessments
It’s May, and with that comes an unsettled, uneasy feeling stemming from a whole cluster of things: the culmination of a year’s worth of teaching and learning, a limited amount...
Using a Storyboard for Reflection and Comprehension
Christy Rush-Levine shows a group of three students how they can use a storyboard to help track thinking while reading.
More Scholarly Discussions in Middle School
I was walking around the classroom with my clipboard, listening in on book club discussions, and heard Megan say to one of her eighth-grade classmates, “Eat my shorts,” before bursting...
Know and Wonder: Deepening Reflection at the Start of Texts
Tara and her husband both love to read, but they choose their books in different ways. Tara likes to choose books by authors she knows well and that friends recommend....
The Big Fresh May 12, 2018 Appearances
Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets. Baltasar Gracián Last fall I had the pleasure of hearing...
Independent Project Hiccups
Some teachers in our school have thrown in the towel on independent projects. Often our colleagues lament the many issues that come up when students are choosing their own genre...
Improving Turn-and-Talks
The turn-and-talk strategy is often used during minilessons. During a turn-and-talk, the teacher poses a question or concept and then asks students to turn to another learner and talk about...
Talk Guide
Gigi McAllister presents a guide to her fourth-grade students to improve talk in reading trios.
Compass Points and Empathy
“Today we are going to discuss our thinking about one of our story’s main characters—Viola,” I announced at the start of my fourth-grade reading workshop. I was met with a...
The Big Fresh May 5, 2018 The Space Between
A boundary is not that at which something stops, but that from which something begins. Martin Heidegger In the early 1980s, many years before there were hundreds of Starbucks,...
