Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Curating a Classroom Library
If you had told me 15 years ago when I began teaching that I would get rid of at least 200 books in my classroom library each year, I would...
Classroom Environment: Classroom Libraries
Anyone who knows me can tell you that one of my greatest passions is children's books. I thrive on finding, buying, reading, and sharing children's books. When a colleague or...
Shaking Off the Village
Shaking Off the Village (after Wanderlust) Today, I walk—cloud-gaze, woolgather, meander—because it is slow. I take leave of my senses, do nothing in particular, with nobody, all alone....
The Big Fresh June 27, 2015 Giving Thanks
Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. Estonian Proverb This spring I mailed three boxes of professional books I’d accumulated over the past few years...
Anchoring Language
By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn. Latin Proverb This spring I walked back into my classroom after being out the day before at a professional...
The Weird Wonders of Genius Hour
My version of backward design is not for the faint of heart. When I planned to give my students an hour a week that we would call Genius Hour, the...
The Big Fresh June 20, 2015 Turning Children into Scholars
Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory. ...
Time for English Language Learners
I am conferring with Bryant, an English language learner, about his reading. “Bryant, how do you think your retelling went the first time you tried?" Bryant is silent. I know...
Quick Writing Conferences in Second Grade
In these brief writing conferences with second graders, Sean Moore reinforces an earlier minilesson on using descriptive language.
Questioning Questions: Rethinking Prompts for Reading Conferences
Reading conferences are an important part of the teacher’s work during independent reading. The conversations we have with students during this time are meant to provide us with valuable information...
Provoking Young Readers
Since attending a Teachers College workshop a few years ago, Shanna Schwartz's suggestion to be provocative with young opinion writers has stuck with me. When one of our second-grade teachers...
Getting to Know a Young Reader
Deb Gaby confers with Kendall early in the school year, artfully mixing conversation with assessment of reading skills and preferences.
Book Clubs Then and Now: Change Is the Constant
I am a book club junkie. I believe that the desire to get together and talk about books is a natural offshoot of being a reader. I belong to two...
The Big Fresh June 13, 2015 Abandoning Big Things
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it. ...
Crafting Characters and Scenes
In this discussion with fifth graders about her book Paper Things, author Jennifer Richard Jacobson and the students share strategies and tools for visualizing scenes and characters when they are...
Sorting with “Kinds of”: Technique Minilessons
When my oldest daughter, Hannah, was in kindergarten, she attempted to put together creative outfits. Although always unique, they often failed to be pleasing to the eye. By contrast, Stephanie,...
Feed Forward
Feedback is a word that teachers commonly use. I thought I had a clear understanding of the term. We provide our students with feedback on their reading habits, writing, and...
Digital Literacy Workshop
Pencil vs. typing. Writer’s notebook vs. Word document. Paper book vs. Kindle. Realizing it is not about the pencil, app, or an Internet address is the first step in transitioning...
The Big Fresh June 6, 2015 The Wow! Scaffold
When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. Mary Oliver Sugatra Mitra, a professor of educational technology in Newcastle, England,...
Worth the Investment
Building classroom community and supporting students as they work out their conflicts with each other is hard work. With today’s pressures in education, opting for quick, teacher-directed consequences and rewards...
Words with Friends
Walking quietly among my preschoolers, I pause to listen to their words flowing around me. I hear children using words they have learned to negotiate play (“Tony, now it is...
