Teaching Unscripted

This week on the Heinemann podcast, how do we create a culture for our classrooms that can last a full school year? Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen, co-authors of Flip Your Writing Workshop and Teaching Interpretation: Using Text-Based Evidence to Construct Meaning, are currently finishing up their third book.

Back-to-school is the perfect time to try new time-management strategies like these. Test them out to see what works, and what doesn't.

Workshop has a predicable routine, and predictable tools, and predicable expectations, students are freed up from having to guess what is expected of them day after day. They are not stymied by waiting for instructions. Instead, they know how workshop will go, and they know what is expected of them

Here are a few ways literacy leaders can help support classroom teachers at the beginning of the school year.

There is a pervasive belief in our culture that being good at math is an innate ability. As teachers, we need to reinforce a growth mindset in our students. Here's where you can start...

Understanding Texts & Readers works in conjunction with The Reading Strategies Book, and helps you connect comprehension goals to text levels and reading responses.

In their new book, Developing Numerical Fluency, Patsy and Steve present what they call pivotal understandings, and put an emphasis on a school-wide culture that values and nurtures numerical fluency.

At the start of a new school year, it is important to take clear and intentional actions that put kids first from day one. Below are four simple and fun activities that build community, encourage engagement, and value student voices.

Choice within routines and environment is essential for instilling agency. Without choice, children are blindly following our rules and expectations.

When we want nothing from a text but what it might have to offer our minds and spirits on its own terms, we read with presence.

When mathematics lessons are systematically planned and implemented with these six processes at the forefront, teachers maximize the chances of all students becoming numerically fluent.

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself, 'what’s the best that could happen?' By turning that old phrase on its head, author Debbie Miller says she’s asked herself a more beautiful question.

The goal of a writing conference is to teach students something about writing that they can use in the future. If you add to students' writing repertoires in every conference, they become better writers over time.

Show and Tell is designed to come directly after kindergarten unit one, Launching the Writing Workshop. It extends the work started in unit one, and supports young writers in taking risks with invented spelling.

As you make plans for a new year with your students, you might be thinking about your classroom library. How can you make your library more engaging for your students? What should you consider as you think about giving your classroom library a reboot?

Sometimes it can be hard to imagine how you might infuse deeper comprehension work into your district- mandated curriculum or instructional framework. If this sounds familiar...

In many ways, we still structure our classrooms and speak with students as if we value compliance and the look of engagement more than true engagement.

When Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle set out to plan a year of teaching together, they knew they were going to have to take some risks, but that it would ultimately help them write a better book for teachers