“I can’t imagine a man enjoying a book and reading it only once.” — C. S. Lewis It’s getting on summer time, and if you’re at all like me, then you’ve got an unreasonably high stack of books that you want to tear into between now and when school starts back up. Before you get […]
Knowledge Builds on Knowledge
At the time of this writing, I have a clear idea of how you and I can improve our practice in five of the six components of the “Non-Freaked Out” Foundations Framework for Literacy Instruction Across the Content Areas. For argument, reading, writing, and speaking/listening, a general pattern emerges: quantity precedes quality. From this, we […]
The Goal of Reading (and Basic Strategies for Achieving It)
A pivotal point in a reader’s journey is when she realizes, either intuitively or explicitly, that the goal of reading is to obtain meaning. If we’re not gaining meaning in a novel or a textbook or an article, then we’re not really reading. You’ve not read something until you’ve understood it. When our students reach […]
Two Ways to Improve Listening (and One Way Not To)
SLANT: Sit up, Lean forward, Ask and answer questions, Nod your head, and Track the speaker. I used to have a SLANT poster hanging up in my classroom, right next to the one for PVLEGS. I had learned of SLANT from Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion; PVLEGS came from Erik Palmer’s Well Spoken. They seemed to make […]
Quantity, then Quality
For four out of six elements of the “Non-Freaked Out” Foundations Framework, the gist of our strategy is “quantity, then quality.” Those four elements are outlined in red below: If we want students to improve as arguers, then first we’ve got to increase the amount of arguing they do — shockingly, I recommend pop-up debates. Only then do we […]