In her first year as a team leader, teacher Katie Durkin understands she has a lot to learn. But she’s already come to understand that effective leadership means building relationships, trust, and community among colleagues – with student success as the guiding principle.
In Identity Affirming Classrooms: Spaces that Center Humanity, Erica Buchanan-Rivera provides teachers with the background knowledge, reflection tools and actionable practices needed to create identity-aware, student-centered environments. For all educators, says Katie Durkin.
Are you looking for lesson plans and ideas to engage your students as they learn to be confident writers? Lisa Eickholdt and Patricia Vitale-Reilly offer a step-by-step plan to develop writing clubs with variations to keep community interest high all year, says Dawna Brandt.
Lisa Eickholdt and Patty Vitale-Reilly’s favorite student collaboration is the Writing Club – an opportunity for kids to write in authentic, engaging, and creative ways. They prepare a foundation for this work with read-alouds, feedback structures, partnering activities, and more.
Whether you are a classroom veteran or a new teacher in your first room, Katie Durkin urges you to think about how you can repurpose, redesign, and rejuvenate your learning space so you feel fresh and ready to tackle the many opportunities for growth this coming school year.
The authors invite us into classrooms that foster choice, collaboration and community through writing clubs. Discover the how-to of complement clubs (process, craft, digital) and stand-alone clubs (genre, author, convention). A super resource, says MS teacher Katie Durkin.
The 2021-22 school year came with all the expected sound and fury, and for many of us, weariness and low spirits. Now summer’s here and MiddleWeb has pulled together a diverse set of deep-dive PD articles you might have missed. They’re insightful, informative and actionable!
In Katie Durkin’s ELA classroom, seventh graders pass along what they’ve learned to future classes via this Inheritance Box project, part of a literacy plus history unit that also teaches collaboration and promotes student choice. Katie takes us through it step by step.
This year Katie Durkin and her fellow ELA teachers will add a Question of the Day – built from state assessment stems – to their whole-class novel unit. As 7th graders discuss best answers they’ll learn to think collaboratively AND prep for mandated tests. See how it works!
Katie Durkin’s 7th graders are once again able to visit the school library, and she has three goals for them: tap into the expertise of librarians; learn how to preview a fiction or nonfiction text; and grow the skills to become expert book hunters. Don’t miss the infographic!
