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Coming Apart to Come Back Together
Poet Mekeel McBride‘s poem provides a useful prompt for teachers to reflect on the underlying tensions in their classroom that might be fertile ground for healthy reflection and change. “Autobiography’s...
Engaging That Class
As a second-year teacher, I had an impossible freshman sixth-period class. I cried after school most days. By contrast, I had three other sections of engaged, fun ninth-grade classes with...
Throw It In, Stir It Up, See What We Get: English Language Learners Tackling Complex Texts
“Being able to read complex text independently and proficiently is essential for high achievement in college and the workplace and important in numerous life tasks.” Appendix A, Common Core English...
Literacy and Technology: Changing Structures
Thirty years ago, in the cracked cinder-block rooms of my small, rural elementary school, the teaching protocol was standard and simple. We walked into school. We put our backpack where...
Confessions of a Struggling Beginning Reader
If you had the chance to learn to read again, would you take it? Well, I leaped at the opportunity. I was so excited! I expected to gain all sorts...
Instructional Coach: A Position of Contradictions
Love. Hate. Productive. Frustrated. Peace. Stress. We live in a world of tension. We are constantly pushed and pulled. This is especially true for an instructional coach because it is...
Picture Walks Gone Wild: Supporting Teachers in the Appropriate Use of Picture Walks
Rita was literally sitting on her hands and biting her lips to keep them clamped shut. I checked the clock on the wall again. Rita was right – this picture...
Mentor Texts for the Writing Process
A staple in every literacy coach’s toolbox is a library of mentor texts. Coaches share these books with teachers as well as students in minilessons to show them how published...
The Quiet Power of Language and Learning with Art
Last year a group of K-12 teachers and I met weekly to delve into how language informs teaching and learning in our classrooms. In our weekly gatherings, the teachers brought...
No Time for Collaboration
A literacy interventionist, Marnie, double-checked her notes. She had it right. Andy, a fifth grader, was indeed reading Poppy (Avi, 2005). Andy kept calling the main character Bobby instead of...
Building Foundations
“Hurry up! Faster! You’re almost out of time!” These are the words heard in a recent professional development with K-8 teachers from across my school district. Teachers are building with...
Letting Children Lead While Conferring
I love Tuesdays, the day I get to return to work with a special group of third-grade students. I enter the room and see almost all students writing in notebooks...
The View from a Principal’s Window
This is the view from my office at 4:00 every day -- a cluster of mothers, acquiescing to their children’s begging, lingers after school while the youngsters stomp and shout...
Going Public with Study Groups
It started with the cancellation of the "What’s New in Children’s Literature" study group. We couldn’t meet on our designated date, so instead of rescheduling the meeting I asked teachers...
High Expectations? Looking for Evidence
Without any say in the plot, my life's story was already written. My high school counselor casually checked off that I had met the minimum requirements in math with an...
Why I Hate Homework
I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and forth from school. The house my children are...
Who’s the Audience for Demonstration Lessons?
Demonstration lessons are one of the most effective components of coaching, but the purpose of them is often unclear to participants. Many teachers share with us that initially they thought...
Creating a Master Schedule
As August approached each year, I was the teacher who began to think and plan for the coming school year. I watched the weekend ads for the latest sales and...
That Teacher Talks Too Much!
I lead professional development workshops and study groups at my school, and we have a new faculty member who is such a talker! She's pleasant and bright, but so dominant,...
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
The Road to Rainbow Magic: Hannah’s Story
A comfortable calm came over the room. It was reading time and students were settling in together and alone. Some were enjoying the solitude of a beanbag chair while others...
