professional resources
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With the start of the new year, resolutions abound. This time of year is perfect for trying out something new in the classroom, too. If you’re not sure what you could experiment with, consider any of the following ideas. Reading Marathons If you haven’t hosted a Reading Marathon, now is the perfect time to have…
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This month’s Writing Clinic focused on exemplars. Exemplars are models of student work that guide students’ performance. Providing an exemplar of the final product benefits students *and* teachers because it eliminates any doubt about what the work of the unit should look like. During the workshop, I ran through WHY we should use exemplars, WHAT…
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My standard introduction at a conference is, “I’m a literacy coach looking for daily doses of creativity and joy,” so when I read Angela Stockman’s Hacking the Writing Workshop: Redesign with Making in Mind, I knew it was going to be a just-right book for me. Boy, was I right! It inspired me so much…
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My very first graphic one-pager. The origin story of this volume of Literacy Links is a Facebook post. Last week, I posted “Why You Should Encourage Your Child’s Love of Graphic Novels” from Parents, and several of my parent and teacher friends commented. Since I’m submitting a conference proposal on “Fearless Reading Instruction with Graphic Novels”,…
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At last October’s Saturday Reunion at Teachers College, Janet Steinberg, TCRWP’s data queen, talked about embedding academic language in our everyday discussions, instructions, and conversations with students. Academic language is Tier 2 words that students often encounter in directions, lectures, and other places of sophisticated talk. Instead of saying, “What is the theme in our…
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Once a month, LPS teachers have a “teacher-led” staff meeting. Teachers must be in the building from 3 to 4 working on anything of their choice. After going to the Saturday Reunion at Teachers College and Literacy for All, I was desperate to share all of the new ideas I’d learned. I’d been considering lots…
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Inspired by all the amazing PD I’ve done recently at Teachers College and Literacy for All, I’m hosting Writing Clinics on all of Center’s teacher-led staff meetings. Each session will have a different focus, and no registration required. The first session is this coming Monday, and I can’t wait! Here is this week’s roundup…
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I have been obsessed with Dr. Rudine Bishop Sims’s quote about books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors ever since I first heard it. So true. So powerful. When I saw Grant Snider’s print inspired by the quote, I knew I had to get it. After the reading specialist at my school transformed a…
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I love Open House! When I was a classroom teacher, I documented “A Day in the Life of a Student in Ms. Vigna’s Class” with pictures, student work, and resources. Since I don’t have a classroom anymore (sniff, sniff!), I’m preparing the Connector, the underground tunnel connecting the two wings of our school, to be…
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Background At the last PD day a couple weeks ago, the literacy coaches organized a variety of stations focusing on writing about reading. Teachers spent the majority of the morning exploring resources like the Literacy Continuum and Learning Progressions, analyzing student work, and calibrating assessment. They collected tons of ideas about what students need to…
A SEA OF TALK 