Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Best First Drafts
Ruth Ayres confers with fourth grader Nicole and reinforces advice from her mom about striving for accurate conventions in first drafts.
The Big Fresh November 5, 2016 What’s for Sale
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. Angela Schwindt My phone rings, an unknown number but a Michigan...
Picture Walks for Comprehension: Conferring with Dylan
Katrina Edwards confers with first grader Dylan, teaching this young English language learner the value of picture walks for comprehension.
Branding Blogs (Part 1)
For many years I have used Kidblog, a student-friendly blogging platform, with my students. As we launched our first weeks of writing workshop, September and October always felt like fertile...
The Importance of Audience
“I don’t really use Twitter, because I don’t know who my audience is.” A group of teachers was sitting around the table finishing breakfast when the conversation arose around the...
The Craft of Blogging
Blogging is one of my favorite hobbies. Mary Lee Hahn and I have blogged at A Year of Reading for more than a decade. If you read the blog, you...
The Big Fresh October 29, 2016 Kindness
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Tenzin Gyatso Several years ago, I was teaching a night course with teachers at their school site. It made for a long...
Top 10 Conferring Tips
“Everyone has a Top 10 list,” Sam said at dinner. “Mine would be Top 10 Things to Recycle on a Train Layout.” Sam went on to explain that you think...
The Power of Group Conferences in Fifth Grade
A few years ago I read Donalyn Miller’s Reading in the Wild and was struck by two of her “traits” of wild readers: readers have plans, and readers talk to...
Student-Led Conferences from Many Perspectives
In Ohio, teaching third grade has become particularly challenging, as it is sometimes difficult not to be consumed with test scores and test results. We have an Ohio law called...
The Big Fresh October 22, 2016 Talking Is Not Teaching
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. Dorothy...
Not Just in April: Poetry All Year Long
One of the most important life lessons that writing and reading poetry can teach our students is to help them reach into their well of feelings—their emotional lives—like no other...
Random Poetry
“I can’t write poetry.” “I don’t get poetry.” “Poetry isn’t for me.” I hear students making these kinds of blanket statements about poetry all the time. Why are students (and...
Previewing a Book with Zoe
Andrea Smith previews a book with fourth grader Zoe in this reading conference.
Poetry Through Song
As a student, I had no use for poetry. Beyond Shel Silverstein, which required no effort to understand, poetry felt elusive and fuzzy to me. When a teacher would announce...
“Old Age Sticks”: Poetry Analysis in Eighth Grade
Christy Rush-Levine leads her eighth graders in a choral reading and analysis of the E. E. Cummings poem "Old Age Sticks." This is the first video in a two-part series....
The Big Fresh October 15, 2016 Family Run
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, "I’m Possible"! Audrey Hepburn My four kids and I are preparing to run a 5K. They’re almost always grouchy when we head...
The Importance of Their Words
Just yesterday, I sat down next to a second-grade boy during his writing workshop. He and his classmates were working their way through their opinion unit, and he was managing...
The Big Fresh October 8, 2016 Riding the Waves
I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea. Charlotte Eriksson Early in the school year it was always about getting into the rhythm of it. I would...
Bad Days in Workshops
This spring I had an observation scheduled by my assistant principal, Gabe Hoover, as part of our teacher evaluation process. I had asked him to come in during writing workshop...
Playful Texts for Beginning Readers
Easy as ABC? Child’s play? Not for some kids. For kids who find learning to read difficult, it is critical that we give them the most engaging books that we...
