This is the first of several posts I hope to write about writing—why it is important and how despite our best intentions, I think we can teach and practice it better. Some context: I’ve visited a series of better-than-average and mostly-very-good schools recently—perhaps ten in at least three states—and afterwards I find myself thinking most of all…
High quality training for teachers is a great thing, especially when it addresses the real world challenges of the classroom in a practical and useful way. But even the best training, we should remember, hasn’t yet changed what happens in the classroom. It takes sustained focus after training to do that. And it takes something that’s…
One of the most frequent comments we get about the idea of embedding nonfiction articles in primary texts is: “I love the idea, but where do I find the articles?” Generally we think this is a great place for schools to coordinate and information share–and as an aside we are working on developing lesson materials…
At our recent Ratio workshop in London we shared this sample page from a student work packet. It’s designed to help structure a student discussion about a text, though it could be adapted to any content. The idea is that it asks students to write a response to a discussion question before they discuss it. Then…
We’ve been watching a lot of footage of the first weeks of school lately—observing how top teachers set expectations and install systems that they’ll use throughout the year. We recently watched a clip of Achievement First Bushwick Middle School’s Eric Snider teaching his students to have productive discussions. My colleague Maggie Johnson loved it and…