Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
The Big Fresh April 30, 2016 Dog Days and Watermelon
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Albert Einstein It was mid-July, and we were in the heat of summer. I was puttering in the kitchen while my kids...
Building Annotation Skills with Partners
Gretchen Taylor works from homework surveys to help students model annotation strategies for their peer partners. The text they are using is The Outsiders.
Purposeful Partners
What teacher hasn’t experienced the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) position shifting that happens when students are asked to turn and talk? If kids haven’t already chosen a spot on the...
Hot Glue Guns
My revelation came between the appetizers and the main dish. At a dinner with a teacher friend I see in person only occasionally, I was describing what Genius Hour is...
Culturally Responsive Texts
We were gathered together on our rug, ready to dive into thinking and feeling along with the characters in a book. Having looked for a text that would be relatable...
Adjusting the Classroom Library for Student Needs
It won’t work. Can I make it work? No, I can’t make it work. This was my circle of thought during the first month of school. I had recently finished...
The Big Fresh April 23, 2016 Standardized Test Unpreparation
Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds. Diane Ravitch In To Kill a Mockingbird, there is...
Choosing and Refining Student Goals
I love those last couple of days before a school break. I slow down a bit, knowing I don’t have a full week of instruction in front of me. I...
Revising Weekly Reflections
I find that I am constantly tweaking and revising lessons from year to year. Heck, I make revisions as I move month to month and week to week in a...
A Place to Belong
It is early spring, and like all teachers, I am gearing up for the wild ride of school days that race like two-track roller coasters starting in April through the...
The Big Fresh April 16, 2016 Thought Partners
What others call you, you become. It's a terrible magic that everyone can do — so do it. Call yourself what you wish to become. Catherynne M. Valente Last...
Developing Individualized Convention Checklists with Students
Melanie Meehan works with third graders to develop personalized conventions checklists.
Alternatives to Daily Editing as a “Bell-Ringer” Activity
“I just don’t understand it,” muttered David, a fourth-grade teacher, as he sat frowning down at some student writing. “The daily editing exercises have emphasized commas in a series almost...
An Individualized Conventions Checklist
A refrain I hear all the time is “I teach conventions, and they don’t show up in student writing.” As the writing coordinator for our district, I am in classrooms...
Deep Reading of Picture Books in Middle School
I have listened to my favorite song, “Paradise” by the BoDeans, more times than I can count. However, nothing beats a live performance. In fact, I enjoy it so much...
The Big Fresh April 9, 2016 Slow Swimmer
The water is your friend. You don't have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move. Aleksandr Popov I...
The Beauty of Imitation
Recently, I read an article titled “Ode to Imitation” in Flow magazine that started out with this: We’re often told that we should be original, independent, and innovative. But sometimes copying is...
Temporary Strategies
I observe as the reader continually looks at the picture and then the first letter of the word, the picture again, the first letter of the word, and the picture...
The Big Fresh April 2, 2016 Editing with a Writer’s Eyes
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads. Dr. Seuss Top Chef is a reality cooking show in...
Supporting Talk Around Writer’s Craft
We believe that immersing our students in reading texts like writers will help them innately develop the knowledge and language to talk well about writing. This type of immersion work...
May’s Menu
We’ve spent 160 days together discussing books, writing narratives, solving word problems, debating governments, and collecting amazing vocabulary. How do I just step back and think about how this school...
