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Nov 19

The Color Conversation: A Classroom Strategy That Actually Gets Teens Talking

How do you get high schoolers to open up and share something real? If your students are anything like mine, they tend to deflect, joke, or suddenly become very interested in the ceiling when it’s time to make personal connections to literature.

So earlier this week, I tricked them—gently—into opening up with a “color conversation.”

The setup was simple: a pile of sticky notes and a handful of colored Sharpies. Before showing the prompts, I told students to grab one marker. Then I revealed the color-coded questions:

Green = Goodbyes: Who is someone you’ve had to say goodbye to?

Red = Bravery: When have you had to be brave?

Purple = Fear: When have you felt afraid?

Orange = Hope: What are some of your hopes for the future?

These emotions connect to the memoir we’re reading together, and because my students are English language learners, I also provided sentence stems to support fluency. I set a 7-minute timer and told them to create and post as many sticky notes as they could. For a bit of motivation, the table with the most notes earned a trip to the class snack bucket.

When the timer dinged, we took a silent gallery walk. Of course, silence didn’t last long. A few whispers broke through: “Wait—whose house caught on fire?” or “Hey, who’s from Ciudad?” While I reminded them there was no pressure to identify their notes, most students did. They wanted to.

The best part? This activity works for any pre- or post-reading moment where students might hesitate to go deeper. And I’m saving the sticky notes. When it’s time for them to write their own memoirs and someone inevitably says, “I don’t have anything to write about,” I’ll point to their own words on the wall—a whole collage of lived experiences waiting to become stories.

Kelly Virgin is a WCWP teacher leader who teaches high school English for the Kennett Consolidated School District.

Nov 12

A Book Review:  Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It (Harvard Education Press, 2025).             A book review by Lynne R. Dorfman

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus/educator who has long influenced literacy instruction in our country, has written a new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It (Harvard Education Press, 2025).  In it, Shanahan discusses a common teaching practice in our classrooms that promote the idea of matching students with “just-right” books. Shanahan states that this protocol of getting students reading different texts depending on their assessed reading level is holding many students back. In addition, it is taking teachers away from time that could be spent helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts. He argues that comprehension skills cannot improve if students are not challenged to negotiate more complex, difficult texts.

Shanahan explains that it’s not helping anyone, and in content areas such as science and social studies, teachers are reading the texts aloud to the students. So, when do striving readers get the chance or develop the strategies and skills to tackle complex material on their own?

Shanahan is advocating for all students to read grade-level texts together, with teachers providing more support for those who need it. Everyone will have the same instructional goal, and some students may move more quickly into independent work while others receive more support in the form of another lesson or one-on-one conference or small group instruction. In this way, more students have a chance at reaching the grade-level learning goal.

Shanahan’s new book outlines a toolbox of strategies for tackling difficult texts, such as looking up unfamiliar vocabulary, rereading confusing passages, or breaking down long sentences.  He is not a believer in drilling students on skills like identifying the main idea or making inferences.  Although there seems to be little agreement on how to boost reading achievement for our children, Shanahan states there is not a body of strong evidence that points to greater improvement in reading achievement when students only read texts at their level. He also argues that developing background knowledge is not as powerful as explicit comprehension instruction. By contrast, a 2024 analysis found that the schools that were most effective were those that keep instruction at grade level.  Shanahan admits that more research is needed to target which comprehension strategies work best for which students and under which conditions. Shanahan believes that Vygotsky’s work is often misunderstood. Vygotsky believed teachers should guide students to learn challenging things they cannot yet do on their own.  Shanahan’s critique of reading instruction applies to children in second grade and above who are learning how to read and focusing on making meaning. In K-1, students are still learning phonics and how to decode the words on the page.  Learning to decode first is important. Shanahan says there are rare exceptions to teaching all children at grade level.  Advanced readers can be challenged through independent reading time and by exploring more complex ideas within grade-level texts. Shanahan also discusses the role of AI and of the parents.He also is concerned about what happens outside of school where our students aren’t reading much at all. His advice to parents is to let children read whatever they enjoy, regardless of level, but to set consistent expectations.  He says parents are the adults and need to take responsibility. The book is filled with practical advice for implementing grade-level reading instruction, including detailed descriptions of the types of instruction and scaffolding needed to increase students’ reading achievement.  His book is a powerful call for giving our students the guidance and support they need to make challenging texts part of their daily reading experiences.

Nov 5

Creating Confident Writers By Mark Overmeyer

If you want to build confidence in your writers, try using samples from their writing as mentor texts. I use professional mentor texts to motivate writers to compose and revise, but I notice writers respond more positively to the use of mentor texts when their own work is included in the mix.

Here are a few ways you might use student writing as a motivational and instructional tool:

Excerpt student texts that align with your teaching points. Since I know I will be focusing on specific craft moves during a genre study, I look for students using specific writing crafts during early drafting stages. For example, in a personal narrative unit, I might look for effective use of dialogue, setting descriptions, strong leads, and character development. I excerpt two or more examples of a craft move to include more student writing and to avoid the mistaken impression that there is only one way to develop character or describe a setting. During my mini lessons, I incorporate these student samples by saying something ike this: “We have been looking at a lot of published writers’ work during our unit, but I noticed that a lot you are already using many of the craft moves we will be studying. Let’s look at a few examples of how you are doing this work so that we can learn from each other.”

Excerpt student texts to highlight multiple writerly moves. Early in the school year, I excerpt one or two sentences of student writing from each student and identify the craft or writing move the writer is using. This bank of 20 to 30 excerpts can become a tool for all the writers in the room as they search for ways to revise and improve their own writing. Using student excerpts can be a powerful teaching tool, especially if you include a wide range of writing that moves beyond just description. For example, if I excerpt one student’s writing because it effectively uses a simile, the next excerpt might include strong verbs, and the next a few specific, proper nouns. Make sure to excerpt at least one sentence from every writer in your class if you use this strategy. Your message should be loud and clear: we are all part of the writing community, and we can learn from each other.

Excerpt student texts and ask your writers what they notice. Excerpt one or two sentences from student writing and then ask your writers what they notice. I often group the students and ask them to jot notes about what they notice about the first four excerpts, while another group of students works on the next set of excerpts, and so on. This way, more student voices can be heard while they engage in conversations about what they notice about each other’s writing. Because I want to frame the noticing around the purpose of mentor texts, I might cue the students by saying something like: “Look at these sentences from our writing. In small groups, I am going to ask you to identify what makes this writing work. Think about what strategies and crafts you can borrow as you read these excerpts. Do the sentences work because they describe? Or is it because of the verbs? Or nouns? You decide what makes them effective and then you will have a chance to share your thoughts with the group.”

Cue students to notice what they can borrow from other writers in the room. Once students can comfortably identify how to use mentor texts, you can ask them to read each other’s work for something they might borrow. One way to organize this type of work is to ask every student to leave one page of the writing on their desk. Then, ask students to filter around the room, reading at least four or five pieces with the goal of identifying one or more craft moves they might use in their own writing. After about 10 or 15 minutes, pause and ask students to share their thoughts, including the name of the writer who inspired them. A student might share something like this: “I noticed that Susan used the verb “trudging” when she described how hard it was to walk her dog in the snow. Susan inspired me to look at my verbs to see if I can change any of them to be more active.”

Professional mentor texts are an essential part of a writing workshop classroom. But remember that we have student writing mentors right in front of us every day, and their work can become an integral part of our writing routines.

Mark Overmeyer Author of When Writing Workshop Isn’t Working, 2nd Edition.