Teacher's Corner

In her comprehensive guide, Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation, literacy coach and staff developer Sara Kugler shows you how to combine the power of book clubs with assessment-driven instruction to support your students as they talk and think about texts together. Using authentic book club conversations as an assessment of academic talk and text understanding, Kugler raises the bar on typical professional discussions about book clubs, moving beyond teacher-directed interactions and surface-level conversations to include:

• Structures, teaching methods, and routines that support authenticity and independence in book clubs
• Suggestions for starting, scaffolding, and sustaining effective, student-centered book clubs
• Tips for listening in on clubs as a way to assess academic talk and text understanding
• Methods for moving from observation into instruction that improves conversation and comprehension
• Touchstone anchor charts and sample lessons for launching and maintaining strong clubs at a variety of independence levels

With a dual focus on stronger comprehension and improved conversations, Better Book Clubs will help you establish effective book clubs that will engage your readers, enhance your learning communities, and become an indispensable component of your literacy classroom.

Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation

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In this episode of Teacher’s Corner, we tune into a conversation between Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr, authors of We’re Gonna Keep On Talking: How To Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom.  They discuss how they chose the book’s title, productive strategies for talking about race with young children, and what readers can expect in their new book.

LINKS

Matthew's Twitter

Jennifer's Twitter

Whether its literacy or math, the goal of conferring with students is to understand student thinking and support their learning in the moment, nudging them forward through brief, informal conversations.

Today’s podcast features Gina Picha, author of Conferring in the Math Classroom, and Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker, co-authors of The Literacy Workshop, in discussion with Stenhouse’s Sarah Haynes-Dietzen about where conferring in math overlaps with conferring in literacy, as well as where the two diverge.

Conferring in the Math Classroom

The Literacy Workshop

Gina's Twitter

Maria's Twitter

Karen's Twitter

What should conversations about race look and sound like in the elementary classroom? How do we respond authentically and truthfully to children’s questions about the world? And how can we build classroom communities that encourage these meaningful conversations about race?

Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr take on these questions and more in We’re Gonna Keep On Talking: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom. A companion work to Kay’s Not Light, But Fire, this book focuses on the unique and powerful role discussions about race can play in the elementary classroom.

In this episode, Matt and Jen share a peek at We’re Gonna Keep On Talking with a reading of the Introduction.

LINKS

 We're Gonna Keep On Talking

Follow Matt and Jen on Twitter:

Matt: https://twitter.com/MattRKay

Jen: https://twitter.com/jenorr

Stacey Shubitz and Lynne Dorfman in discussion with Stenhouse’s Bill Varner. Stacey and Lynne are veteran writers and educators, and together co-authored the recent book Welcome to Writing Workshop: Engaging Today’s Students with a Model That Works.

As you’d expect, today is all things writing workshop, including structure, small group instruction, and the role of teacher as writer— plus we'll learn about Jump Into Writing their new writing workshop curriculum with Zaner-Bloser.

LINKS

Welcome to Writing Workshop

Jump Into Writing!

Follow Stacey at:

Two Writing Teachers

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Follow Lynne at  

Lynne's Blog

Lynne's MiddleWeb Articles

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Paula Bourque, Matthew Kay, and Terry Thompson discuss the myth of the perfect teacher, what we get wrong—and right—about teacher appreciation, and how we can show appreciation year round. Original Airdate 2020.

Links:

Paula Bourque: Spark! https://www.paulabourque.com @LitCoachLady

Matthew Kay: Not Light, But Fire https://www.notlight.com @MattRKay

Terry Thompson: The Construction Zone @TerryTreads

Shelley Harwayne and Stenhouse's Maureen Barbieri in a wide-ranging discussion about Shelley's new book, Above and Beyond the Writing Workshop.

Check out the free study guide for Above and Beyond

Jennifer Fletcher and Stenhouse editor Bill Varner discuss her shift from a teacher-centered approach to a rhetorical one, the long-term value of teaching students to think rhetorically, and the big ideas behind her new book, Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators. 

Learn More: 

Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators

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In 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books, Melissa Stewart and Marlene Correia present a new way to sort nonfiction into five major categories and show how doing so can help teachers and librarians build stronger readers and writers. 

In today’s episode, Terry Thompson talks with Melissa and Marlene about changes in expository nonfiction over the years, the recognition of the Info-Kid, and how teachers and librarians can use the categorization system in their book to better support students

L I N K S

5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books

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Marlene's Twitter

Melissa's Site

Info-Kids, now out of print but used copies available

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Hermann Thompson have spent years comparing notes on how to build effective classroom communities across the content areas. 

Their research led to the development of Hands Down Conversations, an innovative discourse structure in which all students’ ideas and voices take the lead while teachers focus on listening and facilitating.   That structure is detailed in their new book, Hands Down Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math, K-5. 

In today’s episode, Kassia and Christy share their thinking behind their book and the importance of investing time developing dialogue skills to deepen understanding of literacy and mathematics, and also of ourselves and our world. There’s loads of thoughtful and engaging talk here today, starting with Kassia sharing how she and Christy became friends. 

----------------------------------------------------------------Links:

Hands Down, Speak Out: 

https://www.stenhouse.com/content/hands-down-speak-out

You can find Kassia and Christy online at https://handsdownspeakout.wordpress.com

Twitter: @kassiaowedekind & @TeacherThomp

[Original airdate July 2020]