Students love when teachers share videos as part of a lesson in any subject. But they can be vague when asked to recall the rich details or ideas that were included. Sunday Cummins, author of Close Reading of Informational Sources, has five quick lessons that can help.
To ensure all your students benefit from frequent reading conferences, it’s important to keep them short, focused and effective. Author and literacy consultant Jen Serravallo shares 7 tips for being efficient with your time without sacrificing impact or feeling rushed.
Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice is a must read for school leaders especially but also for anyone who plans and facilitates professional learning, writes Amy Whitehead, a member of her district’s PD facilitation team.
This year with help from the ideas illustrated in (re)Designing Narrative Writing Units, ELA teacher and coach Rebecca Crockett has faith that her 7th and 9th grade students will know what good narrative writing looks like and produce some quality writing of their own.
Articles / Writing across Content Areas
by MiddleWeb · Published 10/09/2019 · Last modified 07/21/2020
Writing in science, math and social studies is different from writing in ELA classes, says literacy consultant Lynne Dorfman. A lot of content area writing is informal – its purpose is to promote inquiry and reflection, and it can help students think in more disciplined ways.
Social Emotional Learning / STEM By Design
by Anne Jolly · Published 10/08/2019 · Last modified 01/20/2025
Guiding students to master SEL skills like self-control, empathy, collaboration, and problem solving can be harder than teaching content. The key to infusing social-emotional learning is teacher intentionality, says Anne Jolly, and STEM class offers a perfect SEL framework.
Controversial Content / Future of History
by Sarah Cooper · Published 10/07/2019 · Last modified 11/13/2019
Assigning The Hate U Give as a summer read for history and English eighth graders seemed like a slam dunk to Sarah Cooper and her colleague. Looking back, she weighs the experience to better understand how she can prepare to teach, and then lean into, difficult topics.
Grownups get to go to conferences. Why not kids? Rita Platt’s school offers an all-day gathering featuring a professional author as keynoter, concurrent sessions, and time to network with peer writers and authors from the community. See Rita’s how-to’s and budget tips.
Jordan Walker-Reyes recommends Lori Wilfong’s Content Area Literacy Strategies That Work to all literacy coaches and facilitators, ESL teachers, and content area teachers who want to grow students’ content area knowledge while also increasing their literacy skills.
Gifted students are often the forgotten portion of the special education spectrum. To remedy the problem, gifted and special educator Laura Von Staden highly recommends this book full of valuable information and insight, written in a concise, user-friendly format.
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