I’ve watched a generation of my peers…
Sometimes I worry that all the emphasis on direct instruction, comprehensive curriculum, and teacher-proof texts has beaten the last bit of initiative out of the latest generation of elementary school...
View ArticleCommon Core: David Coleman is no Doug Lemov…
This week, my student teacher and I were discussing questioning techniques during reading of texts to guide student learning, and boy this was timely with some recent discussions about Common Core ELA....
View ArticleHow to re-create the “Reading Wars” without even trying…
One of the problems with having “newbies” involved in creating these new standards, especially folks who like to take a “de-contextualized” approach to novel and new situations, is that they don’t know...
View ArticlePre-reading strategies get banished to the detention room of bad practices…
Last spring, a number of pieces appeared about David Coleman (Common Core’s co-author), telling us to stop teaching pre-reading strategies. When I asked folks attending Common Core trainings at my...
View ArticleReflecting on Common Core RL Standard 5
Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole. - Common...
View ArticleYou can’t ask them to think about text that gives them nothing to think about…
Lately I’ve devoted a lot of blog space to what I’ll refer to as “stupid Common Core tricks” that usually result from being overly attentive to the standards, and not giving enough attention to...
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Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?
This was the second week back from Spring Break. I didn’t write after the first week (Week 30) because as things were “sub-optimal” that week, and I really wasn’t in the mood to voluntarily call up...
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Week in Class: Week 33 Primary Documents
Since we’ve finished with our Language Arts text for the year, I’ve been trying to implement a “replacement” unit for Common Core featuring closed readings. The examples modeled centered on short...
View ArticleWelcome Back! Week in the Classroom the First Month 2015
My family life is still…complicated, but I am still working and I feel the need to try to write about what I’m doing in the classroom. I hope that it will prove interesting and intriguing to you too. I...
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