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EKC

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An inquiry into central ideas: What do we notice?

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An inquiry into central ideas: What do we notice?

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EKC

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Spelling Stages - Determining Instructional Focus

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Spelling Stages - Determining Instructional Focus

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EKC

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Connect with educators around the world!

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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EKC

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Give choice to learners - give them quality and varied choice.

That they will love reading and writing.

The opportunity to succeed.  To understand what is expected of them and what they are to do that can scaffold their learning.

To see themselves as readers and writers.

Become critical thinkers.  To ask questions.

To give them the opportunity to read and write in their own languages.

To be accountable.  To give students' agency over their reading and writing and to receive feedback about how they are doing.

That we are a community of writers.  Not just an individual, but we learn and write together.

The opportunity to share.

To promise not to judge their reading and writing - to have a safe place to share.

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We will help you connect through your expression

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We will help you connect through your expression

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Good literature in wide range in the classroom.
Try to read aloud as much as possible.
Visual aids (especially for ELA)
Time to write.
No silly questions, always better to ask.
They know the purpose. (easier to connect to strategies and time management)

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Authentic purpose and an identified audience

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Authentic purpose and an identified audience

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You can grow as a reader or writer - your expression has value now and it will increase.

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You can grow as a reader or writer - your expression has value now and it will increase.

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Ill help you develop as a reflective and critical thinker, reader and writer.

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Ill help you develop as a reflective and critical thinker, reader and writer.

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Many of my grade 1 literacy blocks are just 20 minutes long between specials and recesses. How do I best deal with these times?

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How can we best differentiate within the model?

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We need to reconsider our block schedule as we consider what is best for kids.

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Building confidence to find mentor texts that fit the learner and the unit of inquiry and still teach the strategies and get writing

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Got:  The quote below, it's a great reminder for me with my students where they currently are on their reading and writing journeys.
Wants:  Mini-lessons and conferring sessions time efficient.
-Karissa

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How do you balance narratives verses expository writing

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How do you balance narratives verses expository writing

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How to develop consistent vocabulary

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Gots: Just in time versus just in case instruction and being aware of what I am doing in my planning.
Wants: How to structure effectively with very limited time periods.

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Want: Breaking down workshop over multiple time periods

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Want: Breaking down workshop over multiple time periods

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How to adapt RW/WW to being implemented in chunks. Without having consistent and large time periods to roll out good, agentic literacy instruction, how can we break it down into a multi-day lesson?

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Lisa

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A mix of care and push - love the description of a warm demander :-)

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A mix of care and push - love the description of a warm demander :-)

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Got: Thank you for the reminder that we have students who are very keen to "figure it out"

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Got: Thank you for the reminder that we have students who are very keen to "figure it out"

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Chris Gadbury

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EKC

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EKC

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Planning with Clarity, Brevity, and the IB in Mind

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Planning with Clarity, Brevity, and the IB in Mind

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EKC

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how long is a "brevity lesson" in general in your opinion? 2nd grade thanks

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Tech Skills - How can we optimize using anchor charts, side-by-side with modeling writing on Canva to ensure clarity and brevity.

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Tech Skills - How can we optimize using anchor charts, side-by-side with modeling writing on Canva to ensure clarity and brevity.

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how can we unpack the resources into more manageable bits

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more application time

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How do we choose what sessions / bends we pull per unit of inquiry?  They are so well structured, it is tough to see which we can take in isolation or how we can do this.

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Recommendation for informational writing about history (WWAPT) in grade 2. Our units for TC are focused more on Science or about general nonfiction from their knowledge base (not research-based). Do you have suggestions for other resources, or other grade levels to check??

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Got: thank you for sharing the planning template. I really like using that not only for whole group instruction, but also small group instruction

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Got: thank you for sharing the planning template. I really like using that not only for whole group instruction, but also small group instruction

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not an assignment (our teaching point) but kids are living it

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most of our teaching occurs after mini lesson- keeping it to 10 minutes maximum- thanks Tonya -you are a g r e a t educator for educators :-)

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TCRWP: Information - NF Chapter Books

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TCRWP: Narrative - True Stories

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TCRWP: Argument - Literary Essays

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EKC

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Link: Write a letter to a friend sharing why you love a book you do

Teaching Point: Teacher shares a book they love, an opinion about the characters and specifically character traits with evidence

Active Engagement: Turn and Talk - share your opinion about characters  in your own book

Connection: I shared a book over the weekend with Ms. Edgerly and it inspired her to read the book too!

Example and Explain:
1. Show a letter I wrote to Ms. Edgerly about a character in a book that I love.
2. Start with a statement - give evidence and examples

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creating our own mini-lesson for writing, using a reading lesson for scaffolding Gr2 unit2 session 6

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creating our own mini-lesson for writing, using a reading lesson for scaffolding Gr2 unit2 session 6

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Connection:
Teaching Point:
"Today I will teach you that when writers....they often find it helps to.... they do this by...."
Teaching/ Active Engagement:
Link:

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How can we choose what lessons to pull out and implement from RW / WW and infuse into our Units of Inquiry.  We don't have the time or structure for every lesson of a bend, how do we choose?

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from Clare Landrigan

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from Clare Landrigan

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EKC

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EKC

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Conferring to Amplify Inquiry & Honor Agency

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Conferring to Amplify Inquiry & Honor Agency

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EKC

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EKC

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EKC

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Hammond (2015) based on Kleinfeld (1975)

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Creating padlets that can be used independently by students in future. ie. prerecorded video mini lesson for comprehension, accuracy, fluency, etc... So if a student is working on comprehension reading non-fiction they can independently watch a lesson by teachers they know.

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Art of Conferring (and normal conferring)

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Art of Conferring (and normal conferring)

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I would like a list of sentence starters and questions like you provided for the research component. It would help me in the conference and allow me to be more relaxed and authentic.

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Where might we turn for conferring ideas - for example, the Daily 5 has the CAFE, where you can draw from a focus from the learner that is just in time.  How would this look with Reader's & Writer's workshop?

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Bank of questions to ask and sample responses to give at the different stages of conferring. I know each learner wants an authentic response, which we can give. But there also can be a bank of responses.
I liked the examples provided today, but I need to more to think about, and then time to actual practice them and work through them on my own until I build more confidence with them and can make them my own. To get to that stage I would like some prompts to test out.

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I know TC has a whole collection of mini lessons prepped for DLP on offer, but what does a good mini lesson in distance learning look like? What markers should one look for at such a distance?

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TCRWP

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EKC

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TCRWP

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TCRWP | MS/HS

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EKC

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Architecture of a Reading Assessment Conference

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Architecture of a Reading Assessment Conference

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EKC

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EKC

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The Text complexity descriptors are quite helpful and a good resource when approaching a conference. I was wondering if there is a more guided approach available from TC, such as an 'If/Then' guide to finding the skill you need to develop and launching those conferences.

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The ones form EKC are extremely clear, and would be fantastic to leave with students as an artifact they and draw upon.

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Thank you so much for all of the resources - so helpful!

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Chris Gadbury

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IB PYP

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Interrelated AtL Skills & Sample Sub-skills

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Interrelated AtL Skills & Sample Sub-skills

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IB PYP

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IB PYP

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IB PYP

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IB PYP

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IB PYP

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Grade 1
Grade 2/3
Grade 4
Grade 5
MYP

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I wonder if we could spend some time writing central ideas for reading/writing units.

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I think we have had lots of discussions and meetings about the POI units central ideas and lines of inquiry.
What I want is conversation about conceptual understandings, central ideas and lines of inquiry about the reading and writing units.
They may be already connected to the unit of inquiry, but I would like them to have clear conceptual understanding.
Wants - guidance and framework/samples on this so we can work together with colleagues

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I want to work with this on my team and talk about it with your more next time.

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To use this planner with my unit and team and plan the literacy and try it

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Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

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Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

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Kylene Beers and Bob Probst

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"Disrupting Thinking is one of the best books I've read about the power of books to disrupt complacency and promote change and the role teachers play in that disruption. Skillfully, these authors address the continuum of education K-12, making this book ideal for colleagues to read and share horizontally and vertically across grade levels."
-- Sarah Mulhern Gross, English teacher at High Technology High School, contributor to The NY Times Learning Network

"We're living in a world of social media and fake news have the potential to shape who we are and what we believe. Through the strategies presented in Disrupting Thinking, teachers see clearly how to help students become active participants in constructing meaning, as they respond, question, and challenge, so that in the end they become more responsible citizens in our world."

-- Mindy Hoffar, All Write Consortium Director

"Beers and Probst tackle one of teachers' greatest challenges: student apathy. They show us not only how to "teach struggling readers but how to teach readers to struggle." And then they go the next step and show us how to turn the apathetic reader into a lifetime reader. And for both, we are grateful."
-- Danny Brassel, Ph.D., consultant and author. Author of The Lazy Readers' Book Club

"We need students who can do more than answer questions. Tomorrow's leaders need to be able to ASK questions. This is an excellent book for all teachers whether they teach reading, language arts, or science or history. Whether they teach elementary, middle, high school or college, or at home - EVERYONE who is around children needs to read this book. It is short but powerful. I have spent over 30 years in education, and I have taught every level from pre-school through university, and this book brought me back to the WHY and HOW of teaching. It is short and easy to understand for non-teachers. As an educator it reminded me of the good things we do in teaching, but stated in their research that all of this has bee set aside to focus on numbers and passing tests - the bane of a real educator's life. Children start out loving books and reading, but by middle school that hate reading because educators are just having them study vocabulary, answer questions, and nothing more. Most schools have taken away quiet or silent sustained reading, when research shows that it works and is needed. At the same time, many schools still do round-robin reading when research shows that it does NOT work. What works: students must be given choice in what to read, we must increase the amount they read, they must be encouraged to read aloud to a partner or parent, we must teach questioning strategies and model that process, and we MUST let go of the silent classroom and encourage students to talk about their reading with other students. Many teachers believe a quiet classroom is one that is in control, but our students need to talk to each other about their reading and their work. Letting go is a critical skill for educators in this fluid and rapidly changing world. Reading builds the following: knowledge, improves overall achievement, increases overall motivation, increases vocabulary, improves writing, build background knowledge, improves understanding of text structures, develops empathy, and develops personal identity.

Please get this little book, read it, then apply the ideas to the children in your life or classroom. Please." --Texas Rose

Provided via Amazon Vine

"If you haven't read anything by the dynamic duo Bob Probst and Kylene Beers and you are a teacher, you must! Their collaborative writing is highly readable, self-deprecating, witty, and on point. But don't be sidetracked by the entertaining repartee: their ideas about teaching are powerful, disruptive, and do-able. Don't think the double entendre of the book's title isn't intentional. While they propose and illustrate tangible ways in which we can disrupt the thinking of our students while reading (or prompt students out of what we thought were nonthinking stupors--Beers and Probst are passionately clear that we're wrong on that count), the duo is intentionally disrupting modern groupthink about teaching. If you only read 3 professional books this summer, make them: 1) Disrupting Thinking, 2) Notice and Note, and 3) Reading Nonfiction (in that order). Yes, like Star Wars, the third book in the series is really where it all begins. Disrupting Thinking outlines the philosophical underpinnings of their Notice and Note strategies. Without an understanding and willingness to embrace the philosophy behind Notice and Note, the signposts will be little more than another set of isolated reading strategies. Trust me, I taught the Nonfiction Notice and Note strategies as isolated reading strategies the first time (I know, I know, the book is clear on not doing that, but my role was to teach demonstration lessons rather than a daily core class). Like any isolated strategy, it doesn't work; kids won't and/or can't transfer their learning. I thought my flaw was a lack of text complexity. I taught the strategies but then students never needed to use them because they understood the texts without them. After reading "Disrupting Thinking," I understood that the attitude toward reading has to be in place for the Notice and Note signposts to be useful. In other words, students have to CARE enough about the text to use the strategies to figure it out. Disrupting Thinking only has one real strategy, and it is deceptively simple and powerful to the core. They call it: BHH (Book * Head * Heart). It can be taught at any level as a mindset for reading: What does the book say? What am I thinking as I read? What's in my heart while I read? (my paraphase, not theirs) The revolutionary idea is that we have to approach reading as something that changes us. When we teach our students to anticipate that what they read will change them one page at a time, then everything about how they read and how we teach reading changes, too. Simple, right? But how many teachers are out there teaching reading as anticipating change? Yet how many teachers out there read to be changed themselves? TONS. So our job is to come at reading with our students the way we do and make it matter. Somehow this simple yet powerful idea resonated with me in a way that all the book love authors have not. It's more tangible and more realistic than sharing your love of reading. They've pinpointed WHY we love reading: because it changes us. Now just because you've read my sad little synopsis, don't assume you can pass up this book. To circle back, Beers and Probst are incredible authors; their book comes with video links that I haven't even delved into yet, and you need to hear it from the two of them for yourself. You'll learn much more along the way, such as their take on recent education and reading debates, authors they look to, sample conversations to help imagine using the strategy in class, lovely sample anchor charts, etc. Is this book going to give you 24 lesson plans like Notice and Note? No. Is this book going to make those 24 lesson plans work? Yes. Get it, read it, and give it to a colleague to read, too." --Julie

Provided via Amazon Vine

"This honestly reminds me of things like why children hate reading and schools killing the love of reading, both the subject and titles of articles and discussions in education. As an English teacher who hates to write, but loves to read, this helps me feel better about the process. I love diving into a new book and sharing it with my students. I honestly got started writing book reviews because my students would see me reading something and immediately ask to read it next. It got to the point where I couldn't remember who was next and what that particular book was about because I had moved on to something new. Writing little book reviews on my classroom webpage and having a wait list made it easier for me to keep track. Knowing that we read for pleasure far more often than we read for any particular literary device or testing strategy is far more important for building lifelong literacy. I love that Beers addresses this and focuses on talking about the relationship of book and reader to engage in comprehension. Trying to figure out motivations and connections to the literature helps me connect and I have always wanted to share that with my students. I love that there are books out there that make me feel validated and can easily be shown to other parents or teachers to stress this importance." --Jennifer Miller

Provided via Amazon Vine

"I only wish that this book would be as popular in schools as Beers previous book was. Unfortunately, the education industry does not put priority on personal meaning in learning, so I think that this is a book that will have to be pushed out by individual teachers and leaders in schools, as well as involved parents. Within the first couple of chapters, Beers sets out why reading even matters- beyond the basic ability to find answers in text. After all, the best readers are usually ones that were read to as children, who saw their own parents or other family members reading for pleasure, and who read for pleasure themselves. And why do they read for pleasure? Because reading has meaning beyond their test scores. Going further, Beers also reminds us that contemporary careers and careers of the future do not want employees that can just repeat back information; they want employees that can make meaning out of what they read, make connections, and create their own ideas from what they have read.

This is an enjoyable read for teachers, school leaders, and parents alike. I especially like it as motivational summer reading for teachers that are getting ready to return to school." --Mom to 2 Boys

Provided via Amazon Vine

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Kylene Beers is an award-winning educator and is the author of When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do, Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading, Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice, and Elements of Literature, the literature textbook read by the majority of middle school and high school students across the US. She began her teaching career in 1979 in the Alief School District, outside of Houston. Texas. Since then, she has become an internationally-known and respected authority in literacy education. Beers works tirelessly to help parents, teachers, and national policy makers understand how to best help struggling readers. In 2008-2009, she served as President of the National Council of Teachers of English and in 2011 she received an NCTE Leadership Award. She has served as a consultant to the National Governor's Association Education Committee, was the editor of the national literacy journal Voices from the Middle, taught in the College of Education at the University of Houston, held a reading research position in the Comer School Development Program at Yale University School of Medicine, and has most recently served as the Senior Reading Advisor to the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Robert Probst, Ed.D., is an author and consultant to schools nationally and internationally. He speaks to administrators and teachers on literacy improvement, particularly issues surrounding struggling readers and meeting standards. Bob is Professor Emeritus of English Education at Georgia State University and has served as a research fellow for Florida International University. He has served as a member on the Conference on English Board of Directors, an NCTE journal columnist, and a member of the NCTE Commission on Reading. In 2004 he was awarded the NCTE Exemplary Leadership Award presented by the Conference on English Leadership.

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

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disrupting thinking: why how we read matters

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teaching methods & materials - language arts

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teaching methods & materials - reading & phonics

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education / teaching methods & materials / language arts

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education / teaching methods & materials / reading & phonics

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teaching methods & materials - language arts

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teaching methods & materials - reading & phonics

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teacher resource; professional development; create engagement; encourage thought

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education / teaching methods & materials / language arts

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education / teaching methods & materials / reading & phonics

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Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

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Buy Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters: Read Kindle Store Reviews - Amazon.com

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Zaretta Hammond

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From math, literacy, equity, multilingual learners, and SEL, to assessment, school counseling, and education leadership, our books are research-based and authored by experts on topics most relevant to what educators are facing today.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

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In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.

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Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

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Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

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Peter H. Johnston

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In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.

Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.

This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.
eBook Available Through Major Retailers
We offer ebook editions for most of our print titles so you can access on your computer, tablet, or e-reader from several major retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, OverDrive, and ebooks.com. View the full list of retailers here. For eBook purchases of 10+ please email us for a quote. Purchases of 20+ qualify for a bulk discount.

If you previously purchased an ebook from Stenhouse.com, they will remain available in your digital library.

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In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool:

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Dr. Katie Egan Cunningham

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Children come to school to become better readers, writers, and thinkers, but they also walk into classrooms hoping to be happy. Katie Cunningham argues that happiness must be as much of a priority in teaching as proficiency or achievement. When teachers intentionally design curriculum with joy at it…

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Lester Laminack & Katie Kelly

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Books as bridges enable readers to speak freely, think deeply, and take action. In Reading to Make a Difference, Lester and Katie build on the work of

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Dr. Jan Burkins & Kim Yaris

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Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

Educators everywhere are concerned about students whose reading development inexplicably plateaus, as well as those who face challenging texts without applying the strategies they've been taught. When such problems arise, our instinct is to do more. But when we summarize text before reading or guide students when they encounter difficult words, are we leading them to depend on our support? If we want students to use strategies independently, Jan and Kim believe that we must question the ways our scaffolding is getting in the way.

Next generation reading instruction is responsive to students' needs, and it develops readers who can integrate reading strategies without prompting from instructors. In Who's Doing The Work?, Jan and Kim examine how instructional mainstays such as read-aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading look in classrooms where students do more of the work. Classroom snapshots at the end of each chapter help translate the ideas in the book into practice.

Who's Doing the Work? offers a vision for adjusting reading instruction to better align with the goal of creating independent, proficient, and joyful readers.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Lesson Sets.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Independent Library Collections.
eBook Available Through Major Retailers
We offer ebook editions for most of our print titles so you can access on your computer, tablet, or e-reader from several major retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, OverDrive, and ebooks.com. View the full list of retailers here. For eBook purchases of 10+ please email us for a quote. Purchases of 20+ qualify for a bulk discount.

If you previously purchased an ebook from Stenhouse.com, they will remain available in your digital library.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

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Danling Fu, Xenia Hadjioannou, & Xiaodi Zhou

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Translanguaging for Emergent Bilinguals is a thorough examination of the development, evolution, and current realities of educating emergent bilinguals in U.S. classrooms. Through engaging vignettes,...

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Kelly Boswell

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Sometimes the hardest part about teaching writing is getting students to write at all. Kelly Boswell reminds us that every writer is reluctant to write

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M. Colleen Cruz

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Real Strategies for the Real Classroom

Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier-lack of time-Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles.

For
...
Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier-lack of time-Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles.

For the struggles unique to you, she includes a " Name Your Monster " section that helps you identify your own individual roadblocks and even offers sustainable support through her blog, colleencruz.com. "We can't solve all the problems we're faced with in writing instruction," Colleen promises, "but we can choose how to respond to them. And our responses will make all the difference."

What makes you unstoppable, or what's stopping you? Connect with Colleen on her blog at www.colleencruz.com/blog.htm or on Twitter, #unstoppablewritingteacher.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

1. A Teaching Mindset

2. "I don't know what to teach this student. He's a much better writer than I am."

3. "I can't seem to get my students to stay writing unless I'm sitting beside them."

4. "I'm not sure how to work with students who are new to English."

5. "I'm finding some student writing repetitive and boring."

6. "I don't feel prepared to work with a student with such great challenges."

7. "I never have enough time."

8. "I need more resources."

9. "I teach grammar but my kids don't learn it."

10. "I feel alone in my work. No one else I know teaches using the writing workshop model."

11. "I have trouble getting families to understand writing workshop."

12. "I want students to write about what they care about, but so much of what they care about seems brainless and artificial to me."

13. Name Your Monster

14. Five Shockingly Easy Ways to Constantly Outgrow Yourself as a Teacher of Writing

Companion Resources

Reviews

"Writing is struggle. If we want our students to become strong writers, then they have to become brave ones. We have to model that bravery in how we teach writing by naming the monsters that challenge us and facing them. Once you finish this book, you'll be well-prepared. You'll know more about the teaching of writing. You'll be braver. You'll be unstoppable. &ldquo from the Foreword by Lucy Calkins

"Hold the phone! Colleen Cruz has given us much more than a writing book here. The Unstoppable Writing Teacher descends into the proverbial trenches and shines a realistic light on the daily life of teachers everywhere. Each chapter addresses universal questions that teachers ponder every day. In the end, teaching writing is rocket science. Read this book and you will learn a great deal about teaching writing, and even more about kids, teachers and life in general." Stephanie Harvey

"The beauty of Colleen Cruz's The Unstoppable Writing Teacher is that it anticipates and addresses the many barriers that writing teachers face and, in doing so, offers smart and practical steps to building strong, independent writers. I love Cruz's notion that good writing teachers are both scientists and artists. It is her mix of science and art that makes this an important book for anyone who teaches writing. I highly recommend it. Kelly Gallagher

Would you benefit from having a literacy coach on-call to help you solve pressing writing workshop-related problems? Colleen Cruz tackles teachers' most predictable workshop-related issues in The Unstoppable Writing Teacher. It's a must-read this summer so that you'll be the unstoppable writing teacher you want to be when school starts this fall. Stacey Shubitz for Two Writing Teachers

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Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

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EKC

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EKC

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Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

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Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

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EKC Connections: Interview with Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld

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Honoring All Languages in Literacy Instruction

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Honoring All Languages in Literacy Instruction

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DisruptED TV

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François Grosjean

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François Grosjean
University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

A number of myths about bilingualism are discussed in my new book, Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard University Press, 2010). They are summarized here.

Bilingualism is a rare phenomenon. WRONG. It has been estimated that more than half the world's population is bilingual, that is lives with two or more languages. Bilingualism is found in all parts of the world, at all levels of society, in all age groups. Even in countries with many monolinguals, the percentage of bilinguals is high. For example, one can estimate that there are as many as 50 million bilinguals in the United States today.

Bilinguals acquire their two or more languages in childhood. WRONG. One can become bilingual in childhood, but also in adolescence and in adulthood. In fact, many adults become bilingual because they move from one country (or region) to another and have to acquire a second language. With time, they can become just as bilingual as children who acquire their languages in their early years (minus the native speaker accent). In general, people become bilingual because life requires the use of two or more languages. This can be due to immigration, education, intermarriage, contact with other linguistic groups within a country, and so on.

Bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their languages. WRONG. This is a myth that has had a long life! In fact, bilinguals know their languages to the level that they need them. Some bilinguals are dominant in one language, others do not know how to read and write one of their languages, others have only passive knowledge of a language and, finally, a very small minority, have equal and perfect fluency in their languages. What is important to keep in mind is that bilinguals are very diverse, as are monolinguals.

Real bilinguals have no accent in their different languages. WRONG. Having an accent or not in a language does not make you more or less bilingual. It depends on when you acquired your languages. In fact, some extremely fluent and balanced bilinguals have an accent in the one, or the other, language; other, less fluent, bilinguals may have no accent at all.

Bilinguals are born translators. WRONG. Even though bilinguals can translate simple things from one language to another, they often have difficulties with more specialized domains. The reaction people have is almost always, "But I thought you were bilingual!". In fact, bilinguals use their languages in different situations, with different people, in different domains of life (this is called the complementarity principle). Unless they learned their languages formally (in school, for example), or have trained to be translators, they often do not have translations equivalents in the other language.

Mixing languages is a sign of laziness in bilinguals. WRONG. Mixing languages such as code-switching and borrowing is a very common behavior in bilinguals speaking to other bilinguals. It is a bit like having coffee with milk instead of just straight black. The two language repertoires are available in bilingual situations and can be used at will. Many expressions and words are better said in the one or the other language; mixing permits to use the right one without having recourse to translation which simply may not do justice to what one wants to express. This said, in other situations, bilinguals know that they cannot mix their languages (e.g. when speaking to monolinguals) and they then stick to just one language.

Bilinguals are also bicultural. WRONG. Even though many bilinguals are also bicultural (they interact with two cultures and they combine aspects of each), many others are monocultural (e.g. the inhabitants in the German speaking part of Switzerland who often acquire three or four languages during their youth). Thus one can be bilingual without being bicultural just as one can be monolingual and bicultural (e.g. the British who live in the USA).

Bilinguals have double or split personalities. WRONG. Bilinguals, like monolinguals, adapt their behavior to different situations and people. This often leads to a change of language in bilinguals (e.g. a Japanese-English bilingual speaking Japanese to her grandmother and English to her sister). This change of language has led to the idea that bilinguals are "different" when speaking the one, or the other, language. But like monolinguals, it is the situation or the person one is speaking to which induces slight changes in behavior, opinions, feelings, etc., not the fact that one is bilingual.

Bilinguals express their emotions in their first language. WRONG. Some bilinguals have grown up learning two languages simultaneously and hence have two first languages with which they will express their emotions. And for the majority of bilinguals who have acquired their languages successively-first one language and then, some years later, another-the pattern is not clear. Emotions and bilingualism produce a very complicated but also very personal reality that has no set rules. Some bilinguals prefer to use one language, some the other, and some use both of them to express their feelings and emotions.

Bilingualism will delay language acquisition in children. WRONG. This is a myth that was popular back in the middle of the 20th Century. Since then much research has shown that bilingual children are not delayed in their language acquisition. This said, one should keep in mind that bilingual children, because they have to deal with two or more languages, are different in some ways from monolingual children, but definitely not on rate of language acquisition. As for bilingual children with language challenges (e.g. dyslexia), they are not proportionally more numerous than monolingual children with the same challenges.

The language spoken in the home will have a negative effect on the acquisition of the school language, when the latter is different. WRONG. In fact, the home language can be used as a linguistic base for acquiring aspects of the other language. It also gives children a known language to communicate in (with parents, caretakers, and, perhaps, teachers) while acquiring the other.

If parents want their children to grow up bilingual, they should use the one person - one language approach. WRONG. There are many ways of making sure a child grows up bilingual: caretaker 1 speaks one language and caretaker 2 speaks the other; one language is used in the home and the other outside the home; the child acquires his/her second language at school, etc. The critical factor is NEED. The child must come to realize, most of the time unconsciously, that he/she needs two or more languages in everyday life. This is where the one person - one language approach often breaks down as the bilingual child quickly realizes that the weaker (often minority) language is not really needed (the caretakers or other family members often speak the other, stronger language, to one another, so why keep up the weaker language?). A better approach is that all family members use the weaker language at home, if at all possible, so as to increase the child's exposure to it and mark the language's "main" territory.

Children raised bilingual will always mix their languages. WRONG. If bilingual children interact in both bilingual and monolingual situations, then they learn to mix languages at certain times only. When they are with monolinguals (e.g. Grandma who doesn't speak any English), they quickly learn to speak just the one language (communication breaks down otherwise). It is important though that the situation be truly monolingual (and not a "pretend situation" in which a bilingual parent pretends not to know the other language); children will make an effort to speak only one language if they feel it is vital for communication. Thus, caretakers will want to create natural monolingual environments where children will need, and hence use, just one language.

For further reading click on the following links:

1. François Grosjean's new book Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard University Press, 2010)

2. A short text, "What parents want to know about bilingualism", by François Grosjean

3. An interview of François Grosjean on bilingualism

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Francois Grosjean - Myths about bilingualism bilingualism

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Francois Grosjean, François Grosjean, Grosjean, psycholinguistics, language processing, bilingualism, biculturalism, sign language, aphasia, applied linguistics, BIMOLA, language processing in aphasics, prosodic structures, second language grammar checking, Life with two languages, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition