If you are an elementary or middle school teacher who has ever perused my article of the week lists (disclaimer: Kelly Gallagher is the man who invented Articles of the Week), you’ve probably wanted to hurt me. This is because my articles are often a stretch even for my ninth graders (after all, the vocabulary difficulty of newspapers has remained stable […]
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Using the Efficient “Take a Stand” Strategy to Hook Kids into a Reading
Let me just start out with this: Erica Beaton (of b10lovesbooks.wordpress.com/#seekthebalance/my next door teacher neighbor fame) introduced me to this strategy (her version is much more sophisticated — see her explanation in the comments), and I’ve also seen something like it accredited to George Hillocks in Michael Smith’s, Deborah Appleman’s, and Jeffrey Wilhelm’s book UnCommon Core (which […]
Here’s What I Know about Reading for Meaning Statements
If you used any of the articles of the week I posted this year (just to be clear, Kelly Gallagher is the originator of the Article of the Week strategy), you definitely noticed some changes to the format. I’ve written elsewhere about why I use Graff/Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say strategy with AoWs (here and here), but I […]
9 Skills the Common Core Doesn’t List but that Employers Want Anyways
The Common Core State Standards for literacy were intentionally designed with a “less is more” ethos. Despite that, there’s still too many of them for average teachers like me to implement effectively. That’s why I cut them, choosing to achieve excellence with a few skills and strategies rather than achieve mediocrity with them all. My list is what you […]
Don’t You Dare Forget These Truths about Teaching
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n my last post (you know, the one from two months ago), I shared some similarities between the Common Core’s list of college- and career-readiness skills in literacy with the skills listed in Bill Coplin’s book 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College. In my next post, I’m going to give that post’s teeter-totter […]