On Tuesday, I shared a visual intended to help teachers conceptualize the whole of a writing workshop year before sharing a unit framework that middle level teachers might use to investigate social justice beside their students. Today, I’d like to show you the dashboard behind this kind of unit design. Those who have worked with me inside of writing workshops and studios are sometimes surprised to learn that I’m a fan of standards and other clear…
When I began Common Core lesson studies with elementary teachers two years ago, they made the same surprising observation in each of the classrooms I taught in that spring: the background knowledge that many readers shared was often very interesting. Some was even compelling. And much of it was completely inaccurate. This didn’t surprise us, but what typically happened next did: when I invited readers to share their background knowledge through talk prior to reading,…