By differentiating reading choices and inviting students to discuss diverse texts using student-led conversations, you can heighten their ability to analyze texts and hone their critical thinking skill. Reading expert Laura Robb discusses set-up and assessment.
Close Reading the Media / Infographics
by Frank Baker · Published 05/30/2017 · Last modified 11/21/2019
Increasingly information is being conveyed in visual terms, and the flashy graphics can both clarify and mislead. Media literacy expert Frank Baker has teaching ideas to help students think more deeply about the infographics and visual data flooding our brains.
Future of History / Teaching with Movies
by Sarah Cooper · Published 05/29/2017 · Last modified 11/27/2019
Showing short video clips to her history students is easy for Sarah Cooper to justify, but with full-length movies she is more cautious about the time investment. Here she shares three films that make the cut: Iron Jawed Angels, Glory, and All the President’s Men.
Baby Boomer teachers are rapidly retiring and being replaced by members of Generation Y or “Millennials” who hold very different beliefs about the workplace and the way principals work with them. Ronald Williamson and Barbara Blackburn share ideas to help them thrive.
Authentic Discovery / The Flexible Classroom
by Amber Chandler · Published 05/21/2017 · Last modified 11/24/2019
How much pre-teaching and context-building should teachers do when they teach novels from other cultural eras? How much is too much in a discovery-based classroom? Amber Chandler’s students helped her find the right balance as they experienced The Outsiders.
You may not be able to stem the tide of Shiny New Things coming your way, but using Woodson and Frakes’ book you will be able to show which reforms are making a difference in the lives of your students and which are just passing fads, writes teacher Alex Valencic.
Consultant Suzy Pepper Rollins loves dogs and ponies, but she’s not eager to see them in the classroom. Here she shares tips that will help principals, coaches and others who do “Learning Walks” set the stage for authentic observations of student and teacher work.
“Since many students are in my class multiple times,” writes ELL teacher Wendi Pillars, “I’m always seeking new topics to tie literacy skills together.” This year one theme was “Zero Hunger” through sustainable agriculture. A perfect hook for a unit on eating insects.
Kevin Hodgson invites Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner to share their thinking about the need to teach argument in the context of students’ authentic digital lives, using the structure of a traditional argument approach with such texts as videos and social media.
Fads are an integral part of the adolescent social fabric. Middle schoolers “embrace each passing fancy with a zeal we wish they brought to their school work,” writes Laurie Lichtenstein, leaving teachers at their mercy. Unless, of course, you turn the table.
