# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grade 7 ELA Labsite 1 - DAA, October 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
More is more when it comes to students' vocabulary knowledge, and in The Vocabulary Playbook, educators in K-12 get ideas for transforming all children into curious, capable word learners. The key? Put away the word-list mindset, and embrace active modeling, peer work, and independent practice.

Five modules offer direct instruction and effective routines that show how to:

Select and teach only the most high-utility, transferable words that are ripe for discussion

Use direct instruction to model word-solving in each content area

Teach morphology in ways that invite students to apply understandings in reading, writing, talk, and listening

Turn academic word-learning into a relevant experience with peer collaboration activities

Create a culture of word consciousness by emphasizing concepts, modeling curiosity, and offering "low-risk" routines that make it okay to not yet know

Intentional vocabulary instruction is critical in every grade, and in every content area. With The Vocabulary Playbook, your approach is now tactical, transparent, and fun. Whether you are an administrator executing a school-wide plan or a teacher eager for practical strategies, this is the book that will help students build academic success-word by word.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students develop vocabulary when teachers make it a priority-it’s that simple. This resource abounds with dynamic word-learning activities...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Transcripts and additional resources

"What I would say to any teacher of balanced literacy: Let us bring our best selves and expand our knowledge. We both have things we can learn from each other. " -Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D.

"Pass on why you learned to be a teacher. Pass it on to your students. Let's make that next generation of teachers truly excited about what we can do to release the potential of every child." -Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode 8: The plea to preserve deep reading, with Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D., and podcast host Susan Lambert discuss deep reading, literacy in the digital age, and bridging the gap between reading approaches.

# data[].attributes.body
Timely post related to teaching of reading strategies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm reading a book about Herman Melville and Lewis Mumford (one of Melville's autobiographers). Last night, before sleep, I read about 20 pages. The author alternates chapters - one on Melville, then one on Mumford.

I didn't get the organization immediately, but whatever is revealed about one author will be implicated in what will be divulged about the other, though the connection isn't always explicit. Last night's pair was about how these very despondent men each managed to find someone who would connect deeply with them emotionally and intellectually, despite the depths of their negativity.

That sounds like I was comprehending what I read... and, yet, that depends on how you define comprehension.

Each chapter addresses a span of years in these writers' lives... but today, I could only provide a guestimate as to the spans of last night's chapters (1850s and 1920s, perhaps). I remember that Melville's emotional partner was Nathaniel Hawthorne - I've read a lot of Hawthorne over the years and even visited his home and the settings of some of his novels. But for the life of me, I can't remember the name of Mumford's long-suffering wife or how they found each other.

These chapters included a plethora of specifics and examples to support the points being made. I now remember only one for each man, though I remember appreciating how apt and effective it all was - even though now I can't remember the specifics. I suspect that on a multiple-choice test, I'd do okay, while on an essay exam, the gaps in memory would be embarrassing.

I'm distinguishing here between reading comprehension and learning from text.

It's an important distinction if we seek to teach reading effectively.

Historically, reading comprehension research tended to use text memory as a close-enough proxy for comprehension. This is because memory is a result of comprehension (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and that the two phenomena can't be separated (Harris, Cady, & Tran, 2006). Comprehension refers to grasping the meaning, and meaningfulness is an important factor in getting something into memory.

What got me thinking about all this was the late Ron Carver (rauding theory, studies of speed reading, creation of Society for the Scientific Study of Reading). We were at a professional conference in the 1980s. There was a debate over reading comprehension strategies.

One side argued for the importance of comprehension strategies because they engaged students' metacognition - the students were intentionally trying to understand a text and trying to be aware of whether they were understanding it.

Carver's side argued that these so-called comprehension strategies were not part comprehension. No, he believed that they belonged in a second category: study skills. According to Carver, that the strategies were less about understanding text (comprehension) and more about memorizing the information (learning from text), was an important distinction.

Historically, study skills and reading comprehension rarely have dined at the same table.

Reading comprehension was thought to be an issue for elementary schools and was about reading, while study skills aimed more at college students and the college-bound and had more to do with their overall academic success (e.g., Robyak, 1978; Raaheim, 1984).

Before the emphasis on strategies, comprehension instruction tended to be more about practicing reading and answering questions. Dolores Durkin famously criticized this as more of an assessment routine than an instructional one, but many educators believed that practice answering questions would improve students' ability to answer such questions in the future. Strategies were meant to go beyond the comprehension practice idea, to transform kids into active readers, creating readers who would actively try to comprehend.

Study skills, by contrast, were more about developing routines for learning and remembering information. An example of this would be the emphasis it placed on highlighting text. Underlining important sentences wasn't encouraged to improve understanding, but to make the key information available easily when students would be studying for an exam. Study skills tended to focus on what students could do to learn information - how to take notes, how to use the library, the development of study schedules for multiple classes, and the like. Comprehension was assumed to take place automatically, so study skills focused on the development of long-term memories.

This morning, I searched for peer-reviewed works on "study skills" in PsycInfo. It turned up 178,229 journal articles, though not all of those were on the right subject (many articles included the terms "study" and "skills"). Nevertheless, I perused the first 25 items, and many were in the right pew. I then searched among these tens of thousands of studies for any that addressed reading comprehension. That narrowed it down to 4,975 articles.

That illustrates that scholars have historically kept these constructs separate, and I think it is time that we respect that.

Arguments over comprehension strategies are a bit muddled these days. Some conflate the emphasis on metacognitive strategies with those aimed at fostering a knack for answering certain kinds of questions. That's unfortunate because the former has a strong research record - strategy instruction improves comprehension - while the latter does not. That doesn't mean we can't have students reading and answering questions, we just shouldn't assume that will improve the students' ability to answer those kinds of questions. It usually doesn't.

More recently, arguments about strategies have come from those who advocate for a knowledge emphasis over a reading comprehension one. These folks want less reading instruction and more content teaching.

Often, reading strategies advocates ignore the quality or value of the texts. They claim, "It doesn't matter what they are reading as long as they are reading." Since you can apply strategies to any text, the text just doesn't matter that much.

The knowledge advocates seem to think that learning information is an automatic process - if students read about a topic they'll learn it, especially if they read several texts on the same topic. Some learning does occur like that, with little intentional effort.

But, it occurs to me that Carver rightfully labeled many of those comprehension strategies as study skills. Summarizing the information in a text, perhaps multiple times, is not likely to improve understanding much, but I bet it increases learning. The same can be said for the recitation that occurs when you ask yourself questions about what you've read and then try to answer them. Those are surely useful tools when you need to gain a greater long-term claim on information you've read about. That doesn't mean we should forget about comprehension strategies during reading, only that it's time to consider whether a strategy improves understanding or recall and then to give each their appropriate due.

Certainly, the knowledge crew is right about the importance of books worth reading. This means reading science and social studies texts. But it also means reading worthwhile literature (cultural touchstones), and fiction that conveys important things about the human condition (our relationships, our motivations, and so on).

The knowledge advocates tend to place a greater emphasis on the quality of the book and on kids grasping the information from the texts. Strategy advocates like these ideas, but strategy instruction can get pretty procedural, without much attention to the content.

But here's the thing. Neither group pays sufficient attention to teaching kids to comprehend. The one group stresses study skills, while the other stresses knowledge as the key to comprehension.

Let's say, I'm a student. I'm trying to read an assigned text. My problem is that I cannot read it with comprehension. The comprehension strategy group wants me to summarize what I've read, which may give me purchase on a few of the facts, but it probably won't help me to grasp the meaning of the text. The knowledge advocates would have the teacher tell me what the text said or have me watch a video so that I would know what I was reading about before I tried to read about it (shifting the comprehension problem but not solving it, since I need to read this book now).

What does all this mean for reading instruction?

1. Directed or guided reading lessons (lessons in which kids read text under teacher guidance and supervision) need to focus on the reading of valuable text, text from which we want students to gain content knowledge.

2. It's not enough that these texts are valuable. They also must be challenging. If kids can comprehend the text on their own, then it is not the right text for a reading lesson. The emphasis should be on how to negotiate the difficulties of a text.

3. Building a depth of knowledge requires that students deeply process the information they are trying to learn. Just reading about something will rarely end up with a depth of learning (remember, here we want more than understanding, we seek learning). Teaching units of related texts can facilitate such learning. Having students write reports, critiques, comparisons, and analyses can be powerful, too, as can discussions, presentations, and debates. Those activities can get kids to review the content to the point that it is remembered. I'd add to this mix, teaching kids some strategies for learning information. That's where many of those comprehension strategies make sense. They may not take a lot of time to learn (the knowledge advocates are right about that, we often overdo strategy teaching), but unlike some of those worthwhile teaching activities (e.g., units, writing assignments, culminating projects), these give kids power over their own learning.

4. Comprehension strategy advocates should get serious about what constitutes a comprehension strategy. What helps students understand a text? Some of the strategies they've studied fall into this category. For instance, teaching kids to monitor comprehension - to be aware of when they are not getting it and to stop and do something about that. Surprisingly, many students, even college-age students, read with little understanding and do nothing about it. But what are students taught to do when they don't understand a word meaning? Or when a sentence seems like gobbledygook? Or, when they are getting confused about which character or concept is now being talked about? Or, how to connect the ideas across a text? That's where comprehension strategies should come in.

Of course, students who know how to monitor their comprehension can tell the teacher that they don't get it and the teacher can explain it. But students also need to learn to solve those problems themselves and to develop the stick-to-it-iveness to do it.

When you're teaching reading comprehension, create opportunities to teach students how to solve comprehension problems - guiding them to solve those problems so that they can comprehend the texts.

When the goal is to teach content, also provide students with some strategies that will help them to study and learn more effectively. Don't allow the study strategies to distract from the content learning, however.
An interesting sidelight: References Even though text highlighting was often emphasized in study skills regimes, research studies and teachers often found this approach ineffective. The reason? The students didn't comprehend the text well enough to know what was important, so they highlighted everything. If they knew more about the topic, this would have been less of a problem. A point to the knowledge advocates. Similarly, if instruction had focused not on how to save the important information but on how to recognize what was important - shifting from study skills to comprehension skills (since it was comprehension the students were struggling with), then the highlighting might have paid off. Half-point to the strategies advocates; they recognized the need for an action plan for the students but recommended the wrong plan. Teaching students to recognize what's important includes getting them to use the titles and other signals authors provide, the frequency with which some ideas are mentioned, or how that information connects to other information, as well as insights about what kinds of information disciplinary experts (e.g., psychologists, historians, chemists, literary critics) are likely to care about.
Craik, F. S., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 671-684. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(72)80001-X
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873694
Harris, R. J., Cady, E. T., & Tran, T. Q. (2006). Comprehension and memory. In J. Bryant & P. Vorderer (Eds.), Psychology of entertainment (pp. 71-84). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Raaheim, A. (1984). Can students be taught to study? an evaluation of a study-skill programme directed at first year students at the University of Bergen. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research,

28(1), 9-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031383840280102

Robyak, J. E. (1978). Study skills versus non-study skills students: A discriminant analysis. Journal of

Educational Research, 71(3), 161-166. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1978.10885061

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
reading comprehension; study skills; knowledge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
I want my students to comprehend, am I teaching the wrong kind of strategies?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This blog entry distinguishes comprehension strategies and study skills. It argues that though these are often confused, they have distinct purposes.

# data[].attributes.body
Timely episode on knowledge building

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode 9: Knowledge building can’t wait, with HyeJin Hwang

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen as HyeJin Hwang offers insights into her research on reading comprehension and content learning for students, especially among multilingual learners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Are we supposed to teach reading strategies or not? I keep coming across contradictory information. Some writers say the research supports strategy teaching and some say that we should teach background information instead. I respect your opinion. What do you think?

RELATED: Can we really teach prosody and why would we want to? Shanahan response:
Many studies - hundreds actually - have shown that teaching comprehension strategies can improve reading comprehension (Filderman, Austin, Boucher, O'Donnell, & Swanson, 2022; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). That's a pretty strong argument for teaching strategies.

That's why I've taught them to students myself.

That's why I sometimes use them when I'm reading.

The first question to ask ourselves, it seems to me, is why do strategies help? How do they make someone a better reader?

I remember Dick Venezky telling me that one of the big benefits of phonics instruction was that it got kids to look at the words, to look at all the letters in the words. At the time, I thought that was glib. But over time, I've come to appreciate the wisdom in that explanation.

My answer for why and how strategies work is as glib as that.

Strategies do two things for readers.

First, they require readers to think about a text more than they would if they just read it.

If readers think more about the ideas in a text, they are more likely to remember them later. Strategies slow you down. It takes more time to read a text and implement a strategy than to only read the text.

Too many readers are satisfied with comprehending a text. They may understand it as they read, but they don't retain the information. We use the term "reading comprehension" too generally. When we use it, we usually intend more than just understanding.

No, it often includes the idea that readers should remember what they read so that they can successfully answer questions, participate in discussions, or use the information in some other way.

Strategies arm readers with purposeful actions they can take before, during, and after reading. Basically, they get readers to think about the ideas more than once. They facilitate learning from text. (That's why Ron Carver used to argue that the term comprehension strategies was a misnomer; he thought a more apt label was study skills, skills one would use to study a text or learn from it.)

The idea of strategies is to provide readers with the tools that will allow them to accomplish purposeful learning - and the tools work by slowing us down and getting us to think more than once about the ideas in the text. A rather blunt tool admittedly, but, according to the empirical studies, an effective one.

As such, strategies play a very different role in the reading process than knowledge.

It should not be a choice between the two.

Second, strategies may also play a useful role in guiding student attention to key information in a text. (I tend to think of most strategies as "paying attention strategies.")

When I'm reading something that is very hard for me, I write down the most important idea from each paragraph or section. That ensures that I pay attention to all the key ideas, without the details distracting me.

Other strategies encourage readers to depend on the author's organizational scheme. Doing so focuses attention on certain key information that they may neglect without that strategy.

Further distinguishing knowledge and strategies in reading are those strategies that emphasize making connections between the text and the knowledge that we bring to the text.

Prediction, for instance, is a strategy that leads readers to anticipate what the author will reveal. Predictions require that readers combine information from the text with the knowledge they bring to the text. Predicting is a tool readers can apply in certain reading situations, but it can only work if there is relevant knowledge available.

Inferencing is another such strategy. Readers can be sensitized to the concept that texts won't provide explicitly all the needed information so readers must draw inferences to fill in the blanks and make connections. But the inferencing strategy only works to the extent that there is background knowledge available from which to generate those inferences.

A third strategy that depends on knowledge and encourages readers to connect knowledge to text is comprehension monitoring. With this one, students are taught to pay attention to whether they are understanding a text or if it is making sense. Determining whether something makes sense means that you can compare it with some standard and that standard for this is the knowledge that you bring to the text.

In all these examples, the strategy gives the reader some insights about text (e.g., it has a structure, the text should make sense, text sometimes implies rather than states information) and some action steps that if taken will improve understanding and memory for what is read.

But none of these strategies pays off unless the reader possesses sufficient topical knowledge to make them work.

As such strategies are useful and knowledge is essential.

That sounds like reading lessons would be better off emphasizing the learning of content, rather than developing insights about text and reading and developing actions students can use in a purposeful way to think more about the text.

But that is not necessarily the case. Our emphasis on knowledge should not be the central goal of reading instruction. It should be the central goal of schooling. Yes, kids should read texts worth knowing in their reading lessons and they should be held accountable for the content learning that can be gained from such texts. But learning also needs to come from social studies, science, and the arts, as well as from all the other sources of information that children confront in the media, in their play activities and social interactions, and so on.

Reading strategies are something students are likely to learn only in a reading lesson. As such, they deserve special attention in those lessons.

I don't accept the premise of what you are hearing - that reading lessons should either teach strategies or knowledge. They need to accomplish the former and contribute to the latter.

Although I didn't cite many specific studies in this blog entry, it heavily benefited from the brilliant contributions of the late Ernst Z. Rothkopf, whose pioneering work on "mathemagenic activities" presaged all the strategy research in reading.

READ MORE: Shanahan On Literacy Blog
References
Filderman, M. J., Austin, C. R., Boucher, A. N., O'Donnell, K., & Swanson, E. A. (2022). A meta-analysis of the effects of reading comprehension interventions on the reading comprehension outcomes of struggling readers in third through 12 th grades. Exceptional Children, 88( 2), 163-184. doi.org/10.1177/00144029211050860

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Rothkopf, E. Z. (1970). The concept of mathemagenic activities. Review of Educational Research, 40(3), 325-336.

Rothkopf, E. Z. (2008). Reflections on the field: Aspirations of learning science and the practical logic of instructional enterprises. Educational Psychology Review, 20(3), 351-368. doi.org/10.1007/s10648-008-9076-5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Knowledge or Comprehension Strategies | Shanahan on Literacy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how to strike the perfect balance between teaching knowledge and comprehension strategies, guided by Shanahan’s expertise in literacy. Read here!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This book offers teachers a complete framework for organizing instruction, aligned with the language comprehension strands of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In-depth chapters are devoted to each facet of reading comprehension, including vocabulary, syntax and sentence comprehension, text structures, background knowledge, and levels of understanding and inference.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
You and your students will fall for close reading. Chris and Kate help you empower students through close reading to not merely analyze texts but to admire the writer's craft, study favorite songs and videogames, and challenge peers in evidence-based discussions.

"Love brings us in close, leads us to study the details of a thing, and asks us to return again and again. These are the motivations and ideas that built this book."
-Chris Lehman and Kate Roberts

You and your students will fall for close reading. In Falling in Love with Close Reading, Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts show us that it can be rigorous, meaningful, and joyous. You'll empower students to not only analyze texts but to admire the craft of a beloved book, study favorite songs and videogames, and challenge peers in evidence-based discussions.

Chris and Kate start with a powerful three-step close-reading ritual that students can apply to any text. Then they lay out practical, engaging lessons that not only guide students to independence in reading texts closely but also help them transfer this critical, analytical skill to media and even the lives they lead.

Responsive to students' needs and field-tested in classrooms, these lessons include:

strategies for close reading narratives, informational texts, and arguments

suggestions for differentiation

sample charts and student work from real classrooms

connections to the Common Core State Standards

a focus on viewing media and life in this same careful way.

"We see the ritual of close reading not just as a method of doing the academic work of looking closely at text-evidence, word choice, and structure," write Chris and Kate, "but as an opportunity to bring those practices together to empower our students to see the subtle messages in texts and in their lives." Read Falling in Love with Close Reading and discover that the benefits and joy of close reading don't have to stop at the edge of the page.

Read a sample from the book to learn more about Chris and Kate's close-reading ritual for students and for an annotated text that shows how it works.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

1. Close Reading, A Love Story
2. The Essence of Understanding: A Study of Text Evidence
3. A Way with Words: A Study of Word Choice
4. If You Build It: A Study of Structure
5. Through Your Eyes: A Study of Point of View
6. The Family Tree: Closely Reading Across Texts
7. I Believe in You: A Vision of Independence

Companion Resources

Download an infographic about the book: perfect for book study in groups or by yourself.

Download the Falling in Love with Close Reading study guide.

Watch highlights from Chris and Kate's webchat with Penny Kittle.

Reviews

"Nothing compares to seeing the success of the students. I informed them they are scholars and reminded them that this was hard work and they accomplished it! So many times, students are described as having trouble connecting their reading and ideas into their writing. But not today! Students I had planned on needing to provide extra support during the written response didn't need it. Honestly, I have never seen a group of students work so diligently and persevere through the lesson."
-Kara DiBartolo (@dibartolok)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You and your students will fall for close reading. Chris and Kate help you empower students through close reading to not merely analyze texts but to admire

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your Research-based Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. 300+ strategies with learning progressions support 13 reading goals, with each strategy cross-linked to skills, teacher tips, prompts, research, and reading levels-everything from fluency to literary analysis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DAA HS Vocabulary Usage Session - October 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Double Bubble Protocol - DAA, October 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Test of Reading Comprehension | Maze Passage Generator | Intervention Central

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The test of reading comprehension Maze Passage generator is an important tool that can be included as part of a teacher resources network for classroom management

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In September of 1954, two hundred and fifty years after castaway Alexander Selkirk gazed upon his own desert island, William Golding publishes Lord of the Flies about a group of British schoolboys str

# data[].attributes.body
from TCRWP Unit of Study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grade 6 ELA Labsite  - DAA, October 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MS ELA Team Sessions Day 1 reflections, return to agreements, and labsite set up Day 2 double bubble and reading strategies Day 3 labsite debrief, word study, reading assessments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Over the summer, we catch up on professional reading, we organize our classrooms, we make plans. In our reading and our planning, we imagine the very best possible scenarios. We see our children working diligently and for long stretches at their writing spots, living writerly lives, generating one powerful idea after another. To be sure, we should plan for our writing workshop at its very best. How else can we expect our students to attain lofty goals if we do not plan for these goals?

But then, after a summer spent envisioning perfect writing workshops, enter the children. At the start of the year, what they can do and what we would like them to do are often two very different things.

Avid readers of Lucy Calkins materials will recognize the analogy of a writing teacher at the start of the year to a circus performer, spinning plates. Just when one corner of the room feels settled, another group needs help. And of course, there is always that cadre of students who cannot seem to keep their pencils sharpened or their thirst quenched, who pop up like popcorn every five minutes or so, giving the room an air of unsettled energy.

When it feels as if the entire room is unsettled, and you are about to forgo independent writing time to gather the entire group back to the meeting area for some disciplinary action, consider table conferences. Table conferences are a coaching method that allow you to reach a large number of students very quickly, without losing the spirit of the independent writing time.

To conduct a table conference, start by taking a quick peek at the students sitting at one table or in one cluster of desks. Notice if there are one or two teaching points that could benefit most of the writers in the group. Then, choose one student who exemplifies the kind of thing others in the group need help with. Ask the student if he minds if others listen while you confer with him, and invite the rest of the table to eavesdrop on your discussion.

A typical table conference might go like:

The teacher takes a quick glance at a group of writers and realizes many of them are struggling to generate ideas for their narrative writing. Some have an idea or two, some have none. The teacher decides to confer with Charlie, who has written Places on his page, followed by one idea: "Ellis Island."

Teacher (to Charlie): "Charlie, I noticed that you have gotten started with a list of possible ideas for narratives. Do you mind if I invite others at your table to listen in while we talk? I think they could learn a lot from listening to you work through your writing process."

Charlie: nods

Teacher (to the group): "Hey everyone at this table, can I interrupt your writing for a moment? Charlie and I were just about to confer about his writing, and I think the rest of you could benefit from listening in."

Teacher: "Charlie, can you tell us a bit about what you are working on in your writing?"

Charlie: "I'm trying to think of ideas for my narrative. I have one idea, a place. I could write about when we went to Ellis Island with my cousins this summer."

Teacher: "Charlie, can I give you a compliment? You are using a really important strategy to generate ideas, which is think of a place you love or that mattered to you, and list moments you remember there. Others at this table, you might want to try Charlie's strategy of listing moments in a place that mattered to you, if you didn't try that already.

"Charlie, can I give you a tip? One thing that might help you, in addition to listing a specific place you remember, like Ellis Island, is to list specific moments you remember in that place. Let me give you an example. A place on my list is always my grandparents' farm in Indiana. Instead of just writing down the farm, though, I try to list moments I remember at the farm. I might list things like, 'the time we all got to ride on the soybean truck,' or 'when my cousins dared me to swing across the barn on the rope swing.' Do you see how listing specific moments helps me to know exactly what I might write about?

Charlie, why don't you try this now. What are some specific moments you remember at Ellis Island that you might add to your list?"

Charlie: "I could write about when my little cousin hid behind the suitcases that were on display. Or maybe about when we looked up my great grandfather to see if his name was there."

Teacher: "Writers, do all of you see what Charlie just did? I think this is something you all could try. Whether you are thinking of places, or people, or turning points, or emotions, try to list specific moments, and then as soon as you have a great one, get starting writing it!"

Notice how the teacher in this example tucks a ton of teaching into her conversation with Charlie and into her debrief. Now, each student at the table has a bunch of ideas they can use right away, and the teacher didn't need to interrupt the whole class's writing time.

In addition to generating ideas, typical table conferences at the start of the year might be:

Moving from generating ideas to generating actual entries

Remembering all we know from last year to make writing better right at the start

Pushing for greater stamina (set a timer, challenge ourselves to write for 6 minutes, then 10, then 15)

Pushing for greater volume (trying to write half a page, then a whole page, then two)

Not letting spelling hang us up (using tools in the room or asking a friend, but then just moving on and making a plan to check words later)

One note, if not every student in the group could benefit from your teaching, not to worry. Likely you will be reinforcing something they are doing well with your teaching point, and writers need plenty of reinforcement as well as instruction.

Happy back to school, and may your writing workshops become hotbeds of productivity in no time.

Anna is a staff developer, literacy coach, and writer, based in New York City. She taught internationally in places such as Sydney, Australia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Auckland, New Zealand in addition to New York before becoming a staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University (TCRWP). She has been an adjunct instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program at Teachers College, and teaches at TCRWP where she helps participants bring strong literacy instruction into their classrooms. Anna recently co-wrote Bringing History to Life with Lucy Calkins, part of the 2013 series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann). She has been a researcher for Lucy Calkins, contributing especially to Pathways to the Common Core (Heinemann, 2012) and Navigating Nonfiction (Heinemann, 2010). View all posts by Anna Gratz Cockerille

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Table Conferences: An Important Coaching Move at the Start of the Year

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Over the summer, we catch up on professional reading, we organize our classrooms, we make plans. In our reading and our planning, we imagine the very best possible scenarios. We see our children working diligently and for long stretches at their writing spots, living writerly lives, generating one powerful idea after another.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Read Aloud Comprehension Planner - "The American Revolution"

# data[].attributes.body
from TCRWP

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Read Aloud Comprehension Planner - "Reproduction & Fertility"

# data[].attributes.headline
Ways to Support Comprehension at the Start of a Novel

# data[].attributes.subject
Ways to Support Comprehension at the Start of a Novel

# data[].attributes.body
from TCRWP Units of Study

# data[].attributes.body
from TCRWP Units of Study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hey. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You might have found your way here through a number of possible paths. Maybe you heard about my book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Or, maybe you typed in www.ready4rigor.com and those shadowy internet puppeteers redirected you here. Maybe you ended up here because you were doing a Google search for culturally responsive teaching practices

Or maybe your school is reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain in a book study and you wanted to know more about this Zaretta Hammond chick who wrote it.

It doesn't matter how you got here. What's important is that you and I are now connected.

Since you are an equity-minded educator like me, you are probably waging your own private movement to bust the myths behind student engagement (or the lack of) among low performing students of color, poor students, and English learners.

Well, you are in the right place. This is a blog where we can get answers to our collective and individual questions about how we can help students become confident and competent learners. In this space, I want to highlight what I am learning from being out in schools and classrooms with teachers who are successful with diverse students. I want to focus on how we can take everyday strategies and practices and put them to work in their classrooms to be more culturally responsive.

So, again, welcome!

Just to let you know, on average, I publish a new post every other week - two times per month at the least (sometimes a few more). That gives me time to be in schools and to write. If you don't want to miss updates on what I am seeing and learning, sign up for my newsletter by pushing that button below.

Binge-worthy Posts and Podcasts

Books are good, but sometimes you want your knowledge in bite-sized doses. That's what I like to deliver: consumable, usable, and entertaining food for thought (and action). Here are some of the most popular blog posts and guest podcast interviews to sample.

About Zaretta Hammond

It's funny. These days a lot of folks are calling me "Dr. Hammond" since the book has become required reading in many teacher education programs and school districts. Well, to set the record straight, I am not a PhD. I do have a Master's degree, but I consider myself a "boots on the ground" teacher. I call myself a former writing teacher turned equity freedom fighter. My heart is forever with children and teachers in the classroom, not in an ivory tower, even if these days most of my "students" are new leaders and pre-service teachers. [ A quick note: Not throwing any shade at all the PhDs out there doing the work.]

When I was in the classroom back in the day, I taught composition (expository writing). It was where I started to understand how important literacy was to equity, and how neuroscience and culture should inform our instructional practice.

Since leaving the classroom, I have done work as a curriculum designer and professional developer at organizations such as the National Equity Project and the Annenberg-funded Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) in the San Francisco-Bay Area. I am a trained facilitator in anti-bias processes and have facilitated groups focused on learning to talk about issues of racial politics and privilege.

My primary work has been linking instruction, equity, and literacy. I have spent time as an adjunct instructor at Saint Mary's College in Norther California where I taught Adolescent Literacy and trained tutors and parents in reading support strategies for struggling students of color.

As an undergraduate, I attended University of California, Berkley before finishing up my degree at New York University where I majored in English Literature with a minor in Writing. I completed my Masters in Secondary English Education, with a Concentration in Writing Instruction at University of Colorado, Boulder where I simultaneously did my teacher certification program (starting three months after the birth of my son. I do not recommend this).

For the past 25 years, I've maintained a small, independent education consulting practice from which I do my research and writing as well as support schools doing deep instructionally-focused equity work.

Stay in touch

I hope this blog inspires, motivates, and challenges you to try some new practices that move you toward being more culturally responsive. If it does, send me a note. I'd love to hear from you. The best way to keep in touch with me is to sign up for free email updates (where you get all kinds of exclusive goodies).

Other Ways to Connect

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About - Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hey. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You might have found your way here through a number of possible paths. Maybe you heard about my book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Or, maybe you typed in www.ready4rigor.com and those shadowy internet puppeteers redirected you here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
No More Teaching Without Positive Relationships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teachers know the importance of strong relationships with their students, but sometimes connecting with them feels challenging. No More Teaching Without

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MS ELA Scope and Sequence 2023-2024 (MASTER)

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Consider these components, but playing with them in a way that makes sense!

# data[].attributes.headline
Informational Reading & Research Super Powers

# data[].attributes.subject
Informational Reading & Research Super Powers