Craft & Draft

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.

Jacob and Pam answer two questions from our patrons: How can Gifted and Talented (GT) students stay passionate and not apathetic about literacy? How can I keep students from hating writing during STAAR prep time?

In this episode, Jacob and Pam first discuss how they have helped GT students Literacy Life alive. Pam shares her experiences as to why students may be apathetic towards learning. She addresses how she has dealt with it in the past when she taught GT classes. Jacob explains how he has addressed similar situations in his.  He explains how he allows students to learn about what interests them the most while maintaining the curriculum standards.

They both tie the second question into the first question by explaining how similar principles will work to keep the learning alive for the STAAR prep as well. Jacob and Pam share what they believe should be focus for the writing during the prep, while offering suggestions to help with the preparation.

Join Jacob and Pam during this bonus episode and keep your students loving literacy, too!

The post #221 STAAR Writing Support appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

In this episode, Jacob and Pam welcome everybody back.  They each took some personal time, so thank you for staying with us!

They both share their thoughts about where schools are headed for 2025, but they landed on school choice and policies that impact discipline.   

Join Jacob and Pam as they begin a new year of podcasting!

The post #220 State of Schools in 2025 appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Hey everyone! We just wanted to make this quick post.

All will be well. Just lots of changes coming and Jacob needs some time, and Pam is on vacation for a few weeks.

Stay tuned!

The post A Christmas Break appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

In this episode, Jacob and Pam explain what they’ve been doing and why they did not post last week’s podcast. They are back and ready to go!  Pam offers some insight regarding the Abydos Learning International Teacher and Trainer Conference for 2024!  Jacob shares a little about his past week as well– full of change!

They also spend time discussing how to lead a department.  Jacob shares leadership advice  through his role as a past department chair and a present administrator.  Pam shares some of her experiences and what she learned from her role as a department chair and academic coach.

Join Jacob and Pam as they share their tips and advice for leading a school department.

The post #219 Leading Your Department appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

The Holiday Season is in full swing and much too often our workshops begin to slump.  The students’ minds are on everything but school.  Teachers need to stay strong!

In this episode, Jacob and Pam discuss the slump that often happens during Fall.  Pam shares about some times that went wrong when she taught during tough times. Jacob explains some of the issues that occur during this time in schools.  He offers a positive message to educators motivating them to stay the course and remember to always move forward.

Join Jacob and Pam as they encourage everyone to stay strong during

The post #218 Staying Strong During the Fall Season appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

In this episode, Jacob and Pam talk about ‘Direct Instruction.’  

Pam shares how direct instruction was the main strategy used while she attended school, especially in secondary schools.  She shared how it was accepted that as a student you were supposed to maintain focus throughout the teacher’s lecture.  

Jacob explains how he uses direct instruction.  He discusses the length of the instruction as well as how to break the lecture into more interactive segments.  He also describes what works and what doesn’t work during direct instruction.

Join Jacob and Pam as they discuss direct instruction and how to spice it up in the classroom! Just a reminder, if you have a subject or question you want us to discuss, please send it to us.

The post #217 Spicing Up Direct Instruction appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.

Jacob and Pam discuss how they use direct and indirect instruction in their workshops. But before they begin, Jacob shares how each interview from the Teach Me Teacher podcast contributes to his development as a workshop teacher. Pam shares how teaching has changed during her career.

Direct teaching dominated the instructional methods in the past. Lectures for the entire c[ass period with a little time to begin the assigned homework were the norm; however, it  is often frowned upon today. The workshop model creates a student-centered atmosphere. Indirect instruction provides time for the students to solve problems, think critically, and learn independently.

This episode is originally found as episode 72 of the podcast. Reposting to support next week’s episode! 

The post #216 Balancing Direct Instruction with Facilitation (repost) appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

Jacob and Pam begin the episode with a segment regarding the best way to communicate in order to have difficult conversations.  This leads into a conversation about how communication styles impact education.

Pam shares how teachers need to approach students with a countenance that says, ‘I’m glad you are here!”  She uses examples from her own life as well as from her experiences in the classroom to illustrate how to make this happen.  Jacob brings his insight and examples of how conversations and approaches to teaching impacts learning and classroom environment.

Join Jacob and Pam as they share the importance of framing conversations in a manner that is best for students!

The post #215 Building Relationships Through Content appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. 

In this episode, Jacob and Pam answer a listener’s question regarding how to advocate for a workshop model in a culture of high stakes test prep demands.

Jacob and Pam begin the episode with a segment about giving and receiving feedback between administrators and teachers.  Pam discusses how she has received critiques and criticism, while Jacob shares his view from the administrative side.  

The episode then moves to answer the listener’s question.  Jacob and Pam offer their insights and how they would go about responding to the changing culture and demands of high stakes prep in lieu of a workshop approach.

Join Jacob and Pam as they share how to respond to feedback and advocate for workshop!

The post #214 Receiving Feedback and Advocating for Workshop appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Hello everyone! Bonus episode 2 is here for you to enjoy! It’s a full hour of workshop talk + we addressed a few questions you submitted.

Below are the questions we tackle in this one.

Thank you for supporting the show!

Alisha’s Question

I’d love to hear about how you start your 6 weeks units. Do they typically follow your curriculum? I teach 5th grade and so we cover narrative, informational, narrative again and then opinion. Typically all my mini lessons are teaching the steps to write these with a little bit of responsive teaching. Are your lessons more responsive driven or are you following your curriculum but teaching them as the needs arise in your classroom? Our district is a workshop district but they like us to stay within the units they’ve laid out for us. I have my students write the type of writing we are studying but with the topic of their choice. Thanks so much!!

Amy’s Question

My workshop model with my fourth graders sounds very aligned with Alisha’s in her 5th grade classroom. My first question is related to how you start a writing unit. Do you have routines with this? We are currently on a break and go back to school next Monday. I will be starting an opinion unit with my kids and would love to hear suggestions on how you would begin a writing piece in this specific genre. What are some questions you might ask your students to get buy in for choosing a meaningful topic (I stick to a unit for about 3-4 weeks with this age group in which they can choose any topic). What are some initial mini-lessons you might hit on?  I try to find an authentic audience for this; the principal, parents, superintendent, the mayor, etc. so that they feel like their voice will be heard.

The other topic I would like to hear more about at some point is regarding something Pam mentioned in a podcast (I don’t remember which one) where she had her kids put together a poetry anthology on a topic of their choice. How was this unit started? How many poems did they include? Was it a full 6-week unit, or a side project they worked on? Did you study different types of poems and then have the kids write in that poem style about their topic? I think this would be a fun unit in April to do for National Poetry month. Many thanks for all the professional development I get from you both!

** This episode is a rerun from 2022.

The post #213 Starting Units and Poetry (Q&A) appeared first on Craft & Draft.