As we turn our attention to the upcoming school year, we do so with many questions and much uncertainty. Will we start the school year face-to-face or remotely? If we are face-to-face, how will social distancing guidelines change the way we teach? The list of questions is endless. And unsolvable. And possibly paralyzing. How do …
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General
Explicit Teaching From a Distance
As we embark on distance learning in our digital/virtual classrooms, it is now more important than ever to be sure our teaching is clear and concise. Distance learning needs to be more than a place where we post assignments, activities, and questions to respond to. We have the responsibility to teach while we are socially …
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Spotlight on Professional Resources: Kids’ Poems
When I was first introduced to the idea of teaching free verse poetry to elementary students, I felt overwhelmed. Teaching form poetry such as haiku, cinquains, rhyming couplets, limericks, etc. felt safe–there was a formula that was easy to follow. But free verse poetry felt wide open and like it had no guiding principles. Then I …
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Breaking Skills Into Strategies
The last several posts have been devoted to unpacking skills and strategies. I have used Jennifer Serravallo’s definition of strategy: “step-by-step how tos that lead toward skilled performance”. When I think about strategies, the question that always pops into my mind is, “How can I break this down?” If a learner is struggling with a skill, …
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How Long Does It Take for a Strategy to Give Way to a Skill?
In my last two posts I wrote about the difference between telling and teaching and the distinction between a skill and a strategy. I shared a story about how author Jennifer Serravallo learned to draw people by using the strategy of lightly drawing shapes and then adding the details of the person. This strategy gave …
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Skills vs. Strategies
If you missed my last post, before reading this one, take a moment to watch this 30-second clip. Did you notice a difference between the way the father taught Max to catch a baseball and the way Drew taught him? Did you notice that he did a lot of “telling” and very little “teaching”? Did you notice …
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Telling Isn’t Teaching
I recently had the opportunity to visit my alma mater and speak to a group of undergrad education majors. I was asked to speak for one hour on any topic I chose. Narrowing it down to one topic was the hardest part! I thought about all of the classrooms I visit and asked myself, “What is ONE …
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Spotlight on Professional Resources: Cracking Open the Author’s Craft
This is one of my FAVORITE books for teaching students how to live like a writer. In Cracking Open the Author’s Craft, Lester Laminack uses his picture book memoir Saturdays and Teacakes to show how a writer intentionally uses visual and auditory craft moves to affect the reader. Here is a video snippet of Lester …
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