The teachers that I work with often tell me that conferencing with writers overwhelms them because they aren’t certain what to look for in student writing or what to say when they find it. This is why the coach in me appreciates books like this one and this one. Calkins and Culham never suggest that conferences are scripted events, and they certainly don’t suggest that teachers limit their work with writers to the prompts and…
I’ve used this video to begin conversations with writers about the development of great ideas in writing. It could also serve as an interesting example of metaphor. I’m sure that every teacher could come up with a different approach for using it. Videos like these can be used in a multitude of contexts and for various purposes. Sometimes, I find myself reconnecting to the videos I’ve bookmarked in some pretty unexpected ways. A couple of…
Inspired by Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough, Katie D. over at Creative Literacy went on a Wonder Walk and captured this video for her students using her flip camera. I wonder what educators could learn about themselves, their students, and their collective work together if they wondered around their classrooms and schools in a similar way? Capturing our wonderment in this fashion could provide us some very meaningful information about our learning and our practice…
Students 2.0 is a new network for young people that will be facilitated in large measure by young people, with a bit of support from some older people who try to remain young at heart ; ). From the ning: Students 2.0 is a network for learners to connect independently with other students and with mentors in order to shape educational paths and experiences which may be outside of traditional institutions. We encourage you to…
Found in my travels this week: VocabGrabber enables users to see how words are used in context. Confusing Words highlights the biggies that so many of us misuse. Save the Words is kinda beautiful, although I’m struggling a bit with its utility. IdiomSite.Com may become a quick favorite of some teachers I know….. RhymeZone is a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus Visuwords is an online dictionary that graphs word relationships
This week, several people in my professional learning network have asked me to stream my demo lessons and share more photos of the work that I do inside of schools. Explaining why I can’t do that in 140 characters or less on Twitter is something of a challenge, so for what it’s worth, I’m sharing my thoughts about it here. The truth is, I wrestle with issues regarding transparency and boundaries quite a bit. Sometimes,…
Communities for Learning friends and fellows! I hope you’ll watch Whatever it Takes, a documentary by Christopher Wong that airs on PBS this week. Giselle Martin Kniep and several fellows of our community learn and lead together inside of this school. Looking forward to being inspired!
Hey–there is an interesting conversation taking place over here. I jumped in because the issues raised here are particularly relevant to the work that I….and a whole lot of other people I know…..do. A theme has been emerging from my own learning over the last few years, and Bass digs into it in ways that I respect. He advocates for leading change by beginning with what is. He speaks to a reality that I understand,…
Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate the first session of WNYLIT, a new forum for literacy leaders in our area, hosted at the Carrier Center in Angola, New York by the fine folks at Erie 2 BOCES (thanks Theresa)! Twenty literacy coaches, administrators, and teachers came together to explore the benefits and challenges of building relationships with those aim to serve. We used a protocol for rich text discussion to explore several pieces…
The folks over at Common Craft have gifted us with another gracefully simplistic video–this one is about augmented reality. This has everything to do with literacy. It has everything to do with learning. Imagine the possibilities. They already exist.