Craft & Draft

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

In this episode, Jacob and Pam discuss when you know your reading workshop is in the zone. Pam touches on when teachers model reading helps build a community of readers.

Jacob and Pam spend time discussing the importance of reading time. Both have experienced moments when an administrator has questioned the value of that reading time. They often say, the students aren’t learning because they are only reading.  Pam shares how she uses reading time and how she believes that students are learning because they are reading.

Jacob refers to the Ron Clark Academy and how educators should own their research and actively become experts in their fields. 

…and much, much more! 

Join us as we look at the impact that reading and especially writing has on our students, classrooms, and entire school.

The post #14 Culture of the Reading Workshop appeared first on Craft & Draft.

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

In this episode, Jacob and Pam discuss the impact of the writing workshop on the culture of the classroom as well as the culture of the school. 

Teachers hear all the time that the school culture must change, but how do educators know that the culture has changed for the better. We both share how we need to identify the type of culture that we desire. We recognize that behaviors and moods may change vary from day to day; culture stays steady throughout the year. 

Jacob and Pam share techniques and strategies that help solidify culture. We recall stories from the classroom which serve as examples that impact our schools in positive ways.  We both agree that writing and making connections that matter to the student writer has the greatest impact on the classroom and it has the power to permeate throughout the school.

Jacob lets us in on an active research project and how his project provided data and a plan to create a school wide approach that empowers students to transfer the learning from their writing workshop to other subjects. He discovered that this study brought an awareness of the power of writing to the attention of the teachers in his school.

Join us as we look at the impact that reading and especially writing has on our students, classrooms, and entire school.

The post #13 Culture of the Writing Workshop appeared first on Craft & Draft.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Craft & Draft! Last week, Pam and Jacob discussed how to spice up a stale classroom workshop. They pointed out that all workshops stall at times, and that’s ok. They also discussed how trusting the process, trying new model texts, and changing how students publish could lead to exciting results.

Today, however, they examine another reason why a workshop might be losing steam, and it’s us! The teacher!

Sometimes we want to control what students do, a little too much. Sometimes we want to tell them everything, and allow so little choice that the only decision we leave students with is the decision to check out of our class.

But how do we let go? How do we step back and let the process of student driven work yield great results?

Well… let’s talk about it!

The post #12 The Art of Letting Go appeared first on Craft & Draft.

**A quick note: Jacob had audio issues on this one…Please forgive us for the hum in the episode! It will be fixed! 

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

In this episode, Jacob and Pam recognize that their workshops may be entering the Dull Drums. It happens! 

When we are in a slump, motivation evades us, but we need to spice it up and keep it fresh.  Luckily, the powering of conferring can lead to us to some interesting ideas (which is exactly what happened to Jacob). For part of this episode, he shares a Horror writing contest his students encouraged him to have, where his students become literary critics voting on the winners. After hearing this idea, Pam steps in and offers a plethora of ideas to take this even further—truly bringing the spice to the future of their workshops.  

Students matter, their words matter; teachers inspire when they create opportunities for students to find their voice. Pam reflects on past years when teachers in her life made a difference, and details how this influences her decisions as she navigates the world of workshop in her middle school classroom.

There’s a lot in this episode to dive in and think about, especially if you are finding that your workshop might be in need of something to get it back on track. 

Join us as we explore how we spice up our waning workshops by bringing novelty, choice, and celebrations to our classrooms.

The post #11 When Workshop Needs Some Spice appeared first on Craft & Draft.

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

In this episode, we think about how we approach conferencing and how to ensure that we get great results from them. We share how the conference is the heart of our teaching, and how it drives everything from moment to moment teaching, future mini-lessons, and even ideas for other students to think about.   

We both use a bit of a different approach (Jacob rolls around to each student while Pam uses a stationary conference chair), but we realize that we both use similar elements which nudge our students to become better readers and writers.

Covid-era teaching or no, conferring is a must for any great reading-writing workshop, and is guaranteed to fill up your teacher’s soul if approached with genuine curiosity towards your students as independent thinkers. 

Join Jacob and Pam as they explore how conferencing with their students has centered their workshop. 

The post #10 The Anatomy of a Great Reading and Writing Conference appeared first on Craft & Draft.