Teacher 2 Teacher Help

Reaching the Goals of the Common Core: Introducing CCLC!

Annemarie — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:30:59 +0000

As I mentioned in a recent post, my website has been under construction for the past few months. While I have been working on my Teacher2Teacher Help site, I have also had a parallel project underway. This has been a collaborative effort with two very fine colleagues and fellow literacy consultants. This week we formally [...]

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Annemarie — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:38:32 +0000

I just created a Twitter account about a month ago. Twitter was first created in 2006, so I know I am behind the times. But, from what I can tell as I search for “friends”, a bunch of you are, too! So I feel that I am in good company. I have to say [...]

New Look, New Feel

Annemarie — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:49:25 +0000

If you are regular visitor to this site, you may have noticed that Teacher2Teacher Help has a new look! Unbeknownst to readers, my site has been under construction for about four months now. While it is still a work in progress, I decided that it was time to “go live” with the new site this [...]

Fabulous and FREE Professional Development Resources

Annemarie — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:22:37 +0000

Here in Michigan, last week was spring break. My family and I escaped to Florida to enjoy some sun and warmth. On Sunday we returned to the reality of less-than-springlike weather and mounds of laundry! So while I was sorting, folding, and ironing all day, I decided to transition back by watching some educational videos [...]

Thinking about Theme Pays Off

Annemarie — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:17:31 +0000

Last week I started thinking more about theme after spending time in a 2nd grade reading workshop. In my previous post I shared a helpful video clip that helped me think about teaching this abstract concept to young readers. Well, that thinking paid off yesterday when I was hanging out in a 6th grade writing [...]

Thinking about Theme

Annemarie — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:22:18 +0000

This past week I spent a morning in a second grade reading workshop. These second graders had been working on taking their comprehension of text to deeper levels. On this day they were learning more about theme. Earlier in the morning the teacher had read Eve Bunting’s Fly Away Home, so during the lesson they [...]

How Will You Live Your Life Differently? Part 2

Annemarie — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:34:03 +0000

Have you ever read a book and known that you will never be the same person you were before you started it? That the words on the pages will stick with you long after the back cover is closed for the final time? When you read aloud a book like this with your students, do [...]

How Will You Live Your Life Differently? Part 1

Annemarie — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:51:15 +0000

When your students finish reading a book, what is the next thing they are expected to do? Take an AR quiz? Write a book report? Begin a new book? Or do they stop to reflect on what they have just read? When I finish reading a book, whether it is memoir, historical fiction, or contemporary [...]

How Do We Teach Close Reading?

Annemarie — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 22:53:20 +0000

I’m reading a book that is changing the way I read and the way I talk to kids about their reading. This happened to me once before–back in 1997 when I first read Mosaic of Thought by Zimmerman and Keene. If you have read this book, you know what I mean. In Mosaic of Thought [...]

Rules to Live By: A Lesson in Argument Writing from Two Young Writers

Annemarie — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:42:42 +0000

I happened to catch a brief segment of The Today Show this morning and couldn’t help thinking about how writing empowers people by giving them a voice—even young people. The segment was about a Walmart cart pusher finding a notebook that was written by two young girls and then misplaced in the Walmart parking lot. [...]

Stealing Reading Moments

Annemarie — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:47:22 +0000

I don’t think any of us would argue that children need lots of time to read in order to become proficient, lifelong readers. There is an overwhelming amount of research that points to a correlation between “eyes on text” and reading achievement. Here is one piece of data that can be found in Richard Allington’s [...]

Happy New Year (twice!)

Annemarie — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:50:49 +0000

One of the things I love about teaching is that we have two opportunities to start fresh each year—at the beginning of the school year and in January. I must say that I am not a big fan of making New Year’s Resolutions—probably because I know I will be setting myself up for failure! But [...]

Building Community Through Empathy

Annemarie — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:00:41 +0000

A couple of months ago I wrote about an anchor experience I had at the post office during the summer Olympics. Yesterday I had another interesting post office encounter. I was waiting in line to mail a letter, along with seven other people. A young man approached the counter and explained that, just minutes before, [...]

Words of Wisdom from Kelly Gallagher

Annemarie — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 02:17:13 +0000

I know that many of you read my website and blogposts because you have attended one or more of my seminars. If you have participated in any of my writing seminars, you know how strongly I feel about the use of mentor texts and teacher modeling in our writing instruction. Yesterday I had the wonderful [...]

Putting the “It” Back in Teaching

Annemarie — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:37:38 +0000

In my area of the country it is “Back to School” week. I know that my colleagues in other parts of the country have been in session one, two or more weeks already. Whether we are in our first week or finishing our first month, this new school year stretches before us with plans and [...]

The Olympics and Anchor Texts

Annemarie — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 19:22:45 +0000

I have taken an unplanned writing sabbatical this summer. Well, not actually a writing sabbatical—just a blogging one. I have spent a good portion of my summer writing materials for upcoming seminars, which has left no time to add content to my blog or website. I am hoping to change that in the upcoming weeks [...]

Cute Clip Art!

Annemarie — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:42:25 +0000

I’m currently writing a new seminar handbook and was looking for new clip art that does not violate copyright laws to jazz up some pages. I recently heard about the website Scrappin Doodles – Clip Art, Websets, Printable Crafts & More, so I decided to check it out. They have some really cute, high-quality, school-related [...]

Found Poetry

Annemarie — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:52:23 +0000

I had never heard of “found poetry” until I read about it a few years ago in Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature K-6 (Dorfman and Cappelli, 2007). Poets.org explains that “found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry [...]

Six-Room Poem

Annemarie — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:24:43 +0000

I recently shared a “a fishing expedition for poetry”–a technique to help writers generate ideas for possible poems. Here is another idea that I first learned about from Georgia Heard in her book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School. It is a graphic organizer that helps writers brainstorm ideas, words, phrases, [...]

Fishing Expedition for Poetry

Annemarie — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:22:57 +0000

I like to start my poetry units by first immersing students in free verse poetry books and encouraging them to name what they notice about this type of poetry. Then I help them realize that poems are hiding everywhere by taking poetry walks around the classroom and outside of the school. Early on in the [...]