Several years ago, I got pretty into Goodreads, mostly because I like measuring stuff and Goodreads made it fun to set goals for and keep track of how many books I read. It was also a big thing on Twitter — people would share how many books they were reading, and they would set reading goals for […]
Reading
These 5 Things, All Year Long: An Overview of The Non-Freaked Out Framework for Literacy Instruction
Note from Dave: This post eventually became These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most. Please note that all of the strategies, frameworks, and research referenced below are updated (and, in some cases, significantly changed, and, in all cases, significantly improved for that back. Mike Schmoker calls it “among the most helpful, […]
How to Read Professional Development Books: 7 Tactics You Might Not Be Using
Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, instructional coach, central office person, or someone else, I’m guessing you’re familiar with the fact that there are a lot more edu-books out there than any of us have time to read. And their unmanageable quantity is not the only tricky thing about professional development books; they also vary in their utility. Some are immediately useful, […]
On Common Core Text Complexity, the Triangle of Life, and the Freakout
My argument here is simple: you, the teacher, have control over text complexity for your kids. I’m definitely not saying all teachers have the same amount of control. Some teachers get to pick virtually every text their students read; others allow their students to pick nearly every text they read; and still others have all of their course […]
Moving Forward with Close Reading
Yesterday, I wrote an obituary to close reading. This grew out of a delightful professional development session I led with a group of teachers in Louisville, KY. (It was delightful, mind you, because of the audience, not the presenter!) During the training, in which we worked through the non-freaked out approach to Common Core literacy, it hit me: the […]