“The Classroom of Choice” is perfect for teachers seeking ways to strengthen their classrooms and curriculum using Choice Theory so students thrive as learners and humans, says MS teacher and NBCT Angela Lee. Each chapter has specific, ready to use, research based strategies.
Writing short form stories is all about revising and playing with your ideas, Kim Culbertson told the sixth graders. “Move things around. Cross things out and add others. See where the exploration of it takes you. The most important part is that you’re finding your own voice.”
As we get to know each student and welcome them into class, we may feel the excitement of the new commingled with the apprehension of the unknown. Educator Stephanie Farley reminds herself that kids want to learn, teachers know what to do, and 20 year-olds want to teach.
Teachers become more effective when they embrace learning for all kinds of kids, including those who are both profoundly gifted and neurodiverse. Teaching coach Stephanie Farley shares ways to use choice, positive emotion, and novelty to engage and challenge every learner.
Recounting her visit from a grandfatherly apparition grabbed the attention of Stephanie Farley’s students and launched a study of storytelling. Putting “stunt teaching” into action – sometimes with colleagues – builds engagement and opens the door to choice, challenge and play.
To guide middle grades students into paying more attention to poetry – and reconsidering their often negative attitudes about reading and writing poems – author and teacher Linda Rief suggests kids create heart books, do quickwrites and illustrate lines of their own work.
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.
Dynamic duo Donalyn Miller and Teri Lesesne have teamed up again to create a book filled with practical strategies to implement immediately as well as valuable resources to ensure student success. Teacher Cheryl Mizerny says the conversational guide is essential reading now.
To help kids capture the benefits of summer reading, ELA educator Kasey Short shares what you can do before summer break begins: communicate with families, motivate readers, provide book choices, increase access to books, and link students to public library summer programs.
“Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL” shows us how – through intentional, deliberate and embedded instruction, including differentiation and choice – teachers can assure all students gain the explicit and implicit SEL skills they need, writes middle level leader Todd Brist.
