Dynamic duo Donalyn Miller and Teri Lesesne have teamed up again to create a book filled with practical strategies to implement immediately as well as valuable resources to ensure student success. Teacher Cheryl Mizerny says the conversational guide is essential reading now.
Literacy mavens Brenda Krupp, Lynne Dorfman and Aileen Hower are more than excited about the possibilities of summer reading this year. Check out their many ideas for choice-based summer programs, including book swaps, virtual author visits, online clubs and more. Plan now!
Writing a decade ago, Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters wondered if online learning could replace physical school. Now as they evaluate the costs to students of pandemic driven education, the teachers turned school leaders have their answer: Content in a human vacuum can’t sustain itself.
As Kathie Palmieri implemented the vocab ideas in Marilee Sprenger’s The Essential 25, she found her 5th graders showed greater confidence in their daily work and demonstrated increased word knowledge in their reading, writing and test-taking. She highly recommends the book.
Every school leader needs a focused, intentional process to move a school from what it is to what it can become, writes veteran principal Frank Hagen. Robyn Jackson offers a “new way of thinking” through the phases of her Buildership Model and its 90-day iterative blueprints.
Some students may not have school work high on their priority list after two years of watching their normal adolescent world fall apart. Right now they may be focused on surviving, writes school psychologist Katelyn Oellerich. “We need to be focused on helping them do that.”
The more students interact with the rubric, the more ownership they take over it, writes Megan Kelly. Once they feel empowered by the rubric, they can use it as a tool to accomplish their goals rather than a means of judgment, putting them on the same team as the teacher.
In Katie Durkin’s ELA classroom, seventh graders pass along what they’ve learned to future classes via this Inheritance Box project, part of a literacy plus history unit that also teaches collaboration and promotes student choice. Katie takes us through it step by step.
Geraldine Woods led independent study at her school for more than 25 years. She’s convinced some version will work in most subjects and for most middle school students if three basic principles are present: student choice, adult guidance, and students teaching students.
The many Aha! moments in Chris Hall’s The Writer’s Mindset will lead the reader to reexamine classroom practices – from reimagining revision to building student self-awareness and much more. Literacy consultant Anne Anderson appreciates the activities that pack the book.
