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Posts from the ‘Key Strategies’ Category

Jul 1

2 Comments

Teacher to Teacher: Close Reading – What It Means for a Writer

By Lynne R. Dorfman

Writers make choices, make changes, and make meaning. It is clear that writing is a tool for thinking.  Writing is thinking written down (Zinsser, 1988). Writing, in fact, is the most disciplined form of thinking (Murray, 1984).   Educators everywhere are talking about close reading, the instructional practice of asking students to critically examine a text through multiple rereadings.  But what does close reading mean for a writer? Read more

Jun 24

8 Comments

From the Classroom: If You Build It, They Will Come

By Tricia Ebarvia

Last week, I shared how I organize my classroom library. But how did I build my library? How did I know what books to include? And how do I keep it fresh and inviting for students? This week, I share the answers to these questions and more.

START AT HOME

Three years ago, my first attempt at a classroom library was a collection of titles that I’d read during and after college. Well-loved copies of books like A Farewell to Arms, Pride and Prejudice, and Mrs. Dalloway sat along side more contemporary fiction I read for pleasure when I had the time, titles like A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Time Traveler’s Wife.  As an English major and general book nerd, it was a lot of books!  That was also the year I was teaching AP Lit, so many of those “English major” titles were going to come in handy with the independent reading I was planning on having my seniors do.

But I soon realized that while many of these titles were great for AP Lit students, they weren’t so great for my other classes, Read more

Apr 8

29 Comments

Celebrating Poetry with Fig Trees and Cake | Guest Post by Janet Wong

By Janet Wong 

UPDATE 4/15/15: And we have a winner! Jo Anne Johns – you are the lucky recipient of a copy of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations! Please email us at triciambe@gmail.com so that we can put you in touch with Janet. Thanks so much to everyone who participated and left wonderful comments and ideas below. 

UPDATE 4/11/15: We’re so happy to announce a GIVEAWAY! Janet Wong has graciously offered to give away a copy of the Teacher / Librarian Edition of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations. To enter, simply post a brief comment below and share one of your favorite poetry activities to do with students or how you plan to celebrate poetry this month! Please post your comment by Tuesday, 4/14, at 11:59 pm EST. A winner will be randomly selected and announced on Wednesday morning.

I agree with Janice Ewing: I too “have mixed feelings about special months designated for things that should be embedded into our teaching and celebrated all through the year.” Poetry is so easy to incorporate into your teaching day; most poems take less than a minute to read. Poetry is so useful, too, especially in teaching other content areas (science, math, social studies, the arts, and P.E. or sports). Saving it just for April would be like saving cake just for birthdays.

But there are some designated months that are still very necessary. Read more

Apr 1

7 Comments

Teacher to Teacher: Poetry Month

By Janice Ewing

I tend to have mixed feelings about special months designated for things that should be embedded into our teaching and celebrated all through the year. Take poetry, for instance. On the one hand, how bleak would the year be if we waited until April to incorporate it into our reading, writing, and teaching lives, and then dropped it like the much-maligned hot potato? Read more

Mar 18

6 Comments

From the Classroom: How do we build our students’ readerly lives?

By Tricia Ebarvia

A few years ago, I read Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide, and since then, I’ve had to ask myself some tough questions about how and why I teach literature. This passage, in particular, continues to haunt me:

Shouldn’t schools be the place where students interact with interesting books? Shouldn’t the faculty have an ongoing, laser-like commitment to put good books in our students’ hands? Shouldn’t this be a front-burner issue at all times?

Read more

Mar 2

Teacher to Teacher:  Does Reading Aloud Really Matter?

By Lynne R. Dorfman

As our already crowded day continues to be even more crowded, how do we fit in time to read aloud to our students?  Does reading aloud really matter? There are many reasons to read aloud, even when you are tempted to snatch that time for more independent reading and writing, or to fit in science or social studies.

A rationale for reading aloud is multi-faceted. It stimulates language development and helps students move more naturally into reading. When we read aloud to our students, we not only model what a fluent reader looks and sounds like; we also model just how enjoyable the act of reading can be. Read more

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