The Magic of Writers Week

When I was in high school, one week stood out above all others.  For the average high school student, this might have been Spring Break, or...I don't even know.  For me, it was Writers Week. For those of you not yet lucky enough to have experienced this magical week, let me try to describe it…

Writing & the Power of Talk

"Learning floats on a sea of talk" (Britton, 1970*). Both Vicki Vinton (Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading, among others) and Katherine Bomer  (The Journey is Everything, among others) used this quote in the classes they taught at UNH.  Last year, as  I applied lessons from Vicki's class to my own classroom, I saw how talking about…

UNH Lit: Summer 2018

Twelve days ago, I wrapped up my last class of the summer  at the University of New Hampshire’s Literacy Institute. Three weeks; three classes.  Each day was packed full with things to think about and learn. Since then, I’ve been trying to boil down how I’m going to implement everything I learned during the upcoming…

On Vocabulary

Vocabulary, to most students, isn't fun.  Even for most teachers.  Sure, there are teachers who love words and nerd out about the etymology of a word (myself included), but when we look at all of the standards out there, "vocabulary" seems like such a small piece of the larger machine. When I search "vocabulary" into…

The Flipped Syllabus Classroom

[Brace yourselves--this is a long one!] It was early December when my colleague first mentioned the idea: "Have you ever heard of the flipped syllabus method?" "Like flipped classroom?" I asked. "No--it could really use a better name, because I thought that at first, too..." She then launched into an explanation of how, in the…

My 2017-2018 School Year Top 5

Now a few weeks into summer, I feel like I have some perspective on the school year.  This was my fifth year teaching, a year that, statistically, is a defining year for teachers (many teachers leave the profession within the first five years).  It was defining for me in a lot of ways, and while…

Walking the Walk

I have a confession to make: I don't read every day, and I don't write every day.  Not the way that I want to read and write, anyway. I'd love to say that I consistently carve out time in my day to read widely--poems, news articles, novels, everything.  The reality is that I read with…

Thinking Routines for Authentic Discussion

I used to provide discussion questions for my students.  I would spend time thinking about book-specific questions that I could ask, questions that I thought would prompt complex discussion and make them really think about the text at hand.  Sometimes, they did have really complex discussions, and I'm sure they spent time thinking about said…

Slow Down. Trust. Listen.

Slow Down. Trust. Listen.  As I walked (or rather, drove) away from my first summer at the University of New Hampshire Literacy Institute, this was the mantra I had decided to adopt for the year.  My classes last summer had given me the opportunity to reflect on where I was as a teacher, why I…