Debate Activity When I perfected this debate activity, the English Learners in my classes begged me to do more debates! More speaking and listening about complex topics? Yes, please! This process took me years to perfect, and I am so happy that I didn’t quit. Classroom Debate Guidelines There are many pitfalls on the road…
Discussion Sentence Frames Discussion sentence frames risk making your students sound like AI. With the right discussion sentence frames, they can practice skills through language. Let’s look at how to get all you possibly can out of your sentence frames. Group Discussion Evaluation The ELA Common Core discussion standard (SL 1) contains a lot of…
Literacy Assessment Literacy assessment can get overwhelming fast. How do you assess what you need to assess? Where’s that sweet spot between authentic work and easy to grade? Literacy Performance Assessment My favorite literacy performance assessments are portfolios and discussions. They help me see students’s depth of knowledge, but they are also real. Use portfolios…
Literacy for All How do we create an inclusive world with literacy for all? 54% of U.S. adults read at or below the sixth grade level. These adults (and you know them) can experience anxiety, confusion, and embarrassment with adult-level reading tasks. They can miss opportunities for advancement. They can become easy targets for those…
Literary Examples It’s time to return my classroom to the literary. The literary examples of teaching are the ones I fell in love with first as a student, and then a teacher. Getting lost in a book. Stunning discussions. Laboring in love through drafts of my writing to get every word just right. Right now,…
Reading Discussion Activities When people think of reading discussion activities, they often imagine a whole class in a big circle, but if you want breakthrough instruction in both the content and discussion skills, the students must take center stage. Discussion as Teaching Method As a new teacher, I was recommended and read Teaching With Your…
Socratic Seminar Questions Examples Before the pandemic, my students worked with Socratic Seminar questions examples to create incredible discussions, but what about after the pandemic? At the start of the 2023 school year, many of my students told me they hated talking in class–until I organized them for Socratic Seminars. Purpose of Socratic Seminar Socratic…
Questions for Book Club I have struggled to succeed with book clubs (or literature circles) throughout my teaching. This year I was able to break through with powerful questions for book club that both enriched my practice and sustained my students. Powerful Questions for Book Clubs in High School What if I set up book…
ChatGPT for Teachers Have you played around with ChatGPT yet? I finally got around to it amidst all the things, and I am very excited about some of the possibilities of ChatGPT for teachers using the four moves every literacy lesson plan needs for soaring reading growth. If you haven’t had a chance to check…
Class Discussion Teaching Strategy There was a point in my career where I walked away from class discussions. The large-group conversations didn’t achieve what I wanted: all students included and conversing without my mediation. In small groups, students were more likely to participate, but they still avoided authentic conversation, just sharing round-robin style without any…
