Supporting Students in a time of Core Standards: English Language Arts Grades 9-12 by Sarah Brown Wessling with Danielle Lillge and Crystal VanKooten is a 2011release from NCTE. The authors created a text that demonstrates how to incorporate the Common Core Standards while remaining student-centered. The text is presented in three sections. The first provides an overview of the Common Core State Standards which illustrates the key shifts needed to move from previous standards to the CCSS. The second section [...]
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Illinois Reading Recovery and Comprehensive Literacy Conference. Though I missed the third day keynote by Nell Duke because of a three hour commute due to snow, the keynotes on the first two days reminded me of the power of learning together with a group. Both Linda Dorn and Peter Johnston talked about best practices in literacy instruction and embedded in their presentations were opportunities to talk to those around me about [...]
My Confessions on Teaching Writing By Jenifer Reichardt, IWP Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am passionate about writing. I love writing. I love reading writing. I love teaching writing. Often I get sighs and eye rolls when I say this. But it is true. I guess this love of writing came about when I was a shy, withdrawn child in school. Afraid to speak my mind in front of others, I could do it freely [...]
Text Complexity, Oh My! Jenifer Reichardt, IWP When the Common Core State Standards came on the scene a few years ago, teachers grabbed onto sound bites such as the fact that Lexile levels would be increased. Head on over to www.lexile.com and you will find a chart that supports this point. Prior to the CCSS, students in grades 4-5 were expected to read in the Lexile range of 645-845. Under the CCSS, students in these grade levels will now [...]
Several years ago, three colleagues and I had the pleasure of attending the final Walloon Institute, an AMAZING conference for teachers that I am very sad to say is no longer around. (On a side note… it was my experience at Waloon that inspired me to become involved with the Illinois Writing Project.) We had an amazing four days of learning and collaborating, along with quite a bit of socializing, and we were able to bring great ideas for teaching [...]
For the past few years, one of the first reading/writing tasks I’ve asked students to take on is to think about their “Landmark Texts,” those books that left a mark on them as both readers and teachers. I start out by sharing my own landmarks… texts that changed me in some way or that I go back to over and over again. Last year, these five texts were: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (A gift from my [...]
Schools across the nation are starting (or in some cases have been in session for a week or more), and teachers are busy building relationships and establishing routines with their students. Teachers using the workshop model for their literacy instruction spend the first few weeks of school not only teaching students the routines and rituals of the workshop, but also getting students busy writing about things that matter to them. Often, in these early days of the writing workshop, students [...]