As many readers of this blog know we are developing a Reading curriculum. We’ve tried to be writing-intensive and to use writing to help students make sense of complex texts and ideas. I thought I’d share some examples from our unit on Of Mice and Men. These were written by Emily DiMatteo and show the range…
I spent much of the weekend re-reading Robert Pondiscio’s fantastic book. How the Other Half Learns, his tale of a year inside the eminently successful Success Academy charter network. Yes, I have thoughts on the larger lessons and implications of the book. At some point I may share them though I’m still thinking it through. For…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the persistence of people’s belief in learning styles lately. Everywhere I go, teachers and coaches talk about the idea as if was established fact when in reality it is an idea without scientific basis. Recently, I started asking myself Why is the myth so persistent when a little bit of…
Had the pleasure of spending the past two days in Raleigh talking about the craft of teaching with coaches at North Carolina FC. I co-led the workshop with ECNL president Christian Lavers-one of the most reflective and best read guys I’ve come across in the game. The highlight of the two days–if you define highlight as…
Here’s a brand new reading video we love… and that tells us a lot about the challenges of reading comprehension. It’s from a lesson on The Giver. Eric Snider of Achievement First Bushwick Middle School is the teacher. Before he taught the lesson Eric read through the text and ‘anticipated error,’ asking himself what students might…