Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
Using Read Alouds to Build Fluency
Early in the year, as we’re getting into our routine of setting weekly goals, we’re sure to mention to our fourth-grade students that we find that reading in our head...
Color-Symbol-Image: A Thinking Routine for Read Alouds
My yearlong exploration of Visible Thinking Routines began with a vision for my students and their learning lives. I wanted students to leave fourth grade prepared to think about and...
More Nonfiction Read Alouds
Every year I plan to read aloud more nonfiction to students. And every year I do—but just a little more. I have worked hard over the last five years to...
First-Grade Minilesson: Emotions in Writing
Katrina Edwards reads aloud a Kate Messner mentor text to build an anchor chart on emotions with her first graders.
Daily Reflection Rubric
“I come to school every day and try to be a good student. I just don’t get why my grades are so bad,” Kaydin complained when he received his first...
The Big Fresh October 7, 2017 Tell Me Everything
Time is generally the best doctor. Ovid A few years ago, my son and I were in the walk-in clinic for who-knows-what ailment, and both of us were waiting for...
Using Student Checklists in Literacy Intervention
I don’t know about you, but I am a list person. In fact, I adore lists in all their splendor: lists on sticky notes, on notebook paper, on whiteboards, and...
Assessment During On-Demand Writing
It's early in the school year. We've started the activities we've planned to build a community of kids who care about each other and value learning. It's time for the...
First-Grade Reading Share: Connections
Bitsy Parks helps her first-grade students complete "thumb reflections" on making connections in reading early in the year by modeling connections from three conferences in a whole-class share session. ...
The Big Fresh September 30, 2017 This Class
If you see something beautiful in someone, speak it. Ruthie Lindsey Before the students even walked through the door of my classroom, I had heard about this class. They were...
Eighth-Grade Conference: Empathetic Reading
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Julian about his strengths as an empathetic reader.
Great Books for African American Boys
When Serena saw the class list for her middle school language arts class, she knew that it was going to be a challenge. There were 18 boys in a class...
Reflecting on the L
Michelle came up to me after reading an article about tenement living in 1890s Chicago in my eighth-grade social studies class and said, “I think I learned from the article,...
The Big Fresh September 23, 2017 Plain Vanilla
The cars we drive say a lot about us. Alexandra Paul This spring I did something for the first time. I traded in a car before it was ready...
Sketching Your Way to a Big Idea
In eighth grade, our last unit of the year was a Shakespeare unit on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We used the Shakespeare Set Free text from the Folger Shakespeare Library...
Exploring Text Features
Melanie Meehan works with a small group to talk through how nonfiction text features might enhance their informational writing.
Visual Expectations in the Classroom
Turn left here. Now take a slight right. As adults, we listen to commands such as these while navigating new territories. Relying on our GPS, we not only listen to...
Giving Graphic Organizers a Go
When my literacy coach fanned out five graphic organizers for text structures (description, sequence, compare/contrast, problem/solution, and cause/effect) and suggested I ask each child to try roughing out a plan...
The Big Fresh September 16, 2017 What Rules?
I love rules and I love following them, unless that rule is stupid. Anna Kendrick I once knew a group of young adult guys who banded together to rent a...
Gradual Release of Responsibility in Small Groups
At times in our teaching careers, we’ve stepped back and realized we've been teaching too much. It happens when we’ve gradually fallen into a cycle of teaching a new minilesson...
Talk Expectations in Reading Groups
Gigi McAllister assists a group of fourth graders who are trying out bookmarks of discussion prompts.
