Teacher's Corner – Details, episodes & analysis

In her comprehensive guide, Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation, literacy coach and staff developer Sara Kugler shows you how to combine the power of book clubs with assessment-driven instruction to support your students as they talk and think about texts together. Using authentic book club conversations as an assessment of academic talk and text understanding, Kugler raises the bar on typical professional discussions about book clubs, moving beyond teacher-directed interactions and surface-level conversations to include:

• Structures, teaching methods, and routines that support authenticity and independence in book clubs
• Suggestions for starting, scaffolding, and sustaining effective, student-centered book clubs
• Tips for listening in on clubs as a way to assess academic talk and text understanding
• Methods for moving from observation into instruction that improves conversation and comprehension
• Touchstone anchor charts and sample lessons for launching and maintaining strong clubs at a variety of independence levels

With a dual focus on stronger comprehension and improved conversations, Better Book Clubs will help you establish effective book clubs that will engage your readers, enhance your learning communities, and become an indispensable component of your literacy classroom.

Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation

Sara's Twitter

Grace's Twitter

In this episode of Teacher’s Corner, we tune into a conversation between Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr, authors of We’re Gonna Keep On Talking: How To Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom.  They discuss how they chose the book’s title, productive strategies for talking about race with young children, and what readers can expect in their new book.

LINKS

Matthew's Twitter

Jennifer's Twitter

Originally broadcast in 2020.

Paula Bourque, Matthew Kay, and Terry Thompson discuss the myth of the perfect teacher, what we get wrong—and right—about teacher appreciation, and how we can show appreciation year round.

Links:

Paula Bourque:
Spark!:  https://www.stenhouse.com/1200.asp
https://www.paulabourque.com
@LitCoachLady

Matthew Kay:
Not Light, But Fire: https://www.stenhouse.com/1098.asp
https://www.notlight.com
@MattRKay

Terry Thompson:
The Construction Zone: https://www.stenhouse.com/0869.asp
@TerryTreads

Rebroadcast: Gravity Goldberg and Renée Houser, creators of the Teachers Toolkit for Independent Reading share their experiences and questions about helping kids access books and teachers, and what’s important as they look to the fall. 

LINKS!

The Teacher's Toolkit for Independent Reading:

https://www.stenhouse.com/1400.asp

In the upcoming Text Sets in Action: Pathways through Content Area Literacy, Mary Ann Cappiello and Erika Thulin Dawes demonstrate how text sets can prompt serious thinking more effectively than any single text.  Teachers who adopt this approach find that the texts’ various lenses enable students not only to meet curriculum standards but also to experience engagement and encourage inquiry across the disciplines.

In this podcast, Mary Ann and Erika share their background and the origin and definition of a text set, what educators will learn from their new book, and are joined by Lorraine Leddy, a classroom teacher from New York,  for an in-depth discussion about her experience collaborating with them to introduce text sets in her third grade classroom and the benefits of a text sets approach in curriculum design. 

LINKS

Pre-order Text Sets in Action: Pathways through Content Area Literacy 

Keep up with Mary Ann and Erika 

www.teachingwithtradebooks.com

www.theclassroombookshelf.com

https://www.thebiographyclearinghouse.org/

Mary Ann's Twitter

Erika's Twitter

Lorraine's Twitter

What can we teach kids today that will have utility ten or fifteen years from now? Angela Kohnen and Wendy Saul propose an approach to information literacy that goes beyond the teaching of discrete, easily outdated skills. Instead, they use activity to help students build identities as curious individuals empowered to ask their own questions and able to navigate their information-filled world in pursuit of credible answers.

Thinking Like a Generalist

Graham Fletcher and Tracy Zager share a sneak peek of upcoming Building Fact Fluency Toolkit for Multiplication and Division and discuss the purpose and challenge of creating intriguing and accessible contexts for students. 

LINKS

Want to be the first to know about Graham's new Toolkit?

Building Fact Fluency; A Toolkit for Addition and Subtraction

Building Fact Fluency Community Facebook Group

Graham Fletcher:

@gfletchy

Graham's Website

Tracy Zager:

@tracyzager

Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had

Cris Tovani teams up with her instructional coach/editor/friend Samantha Bennett for an engaging, often funny, always insightful discussion of their long relationship and the stories behind her new book, Why Do I Have to Read This?  Literacy Strategies to Engage Our Most Reluctant Students.  Don't miss it!

Do I Really Have to Read This?

Cris's Twitter

Sam's Twitter

Free webinar with Cris

When we set about creating today’s episode, we knew we wanted to explore the idea of gratitude with several authors.  What we could not have anticipated is how thoughtful and gracious they were. 

In our first segment, we speak with Lisa Lucas about what we experience physiologically when we express gratitude and how we can incorporate gratitude into our classroom and daily lives.   

Next, Gravity Goldberg and Renee Houser discuss how gratitude is embedded in their teaching and its role within a growth mindset.  

In our last two segments, Jeff Anderson and Whitney La Rocca, each share how the changes forced by the pandemic provided unexpected gifts.

LINKS

Lisa Lucas: Twitter

Practicing Presence

Gravity Goldberg Twitter

Renee Houser Twitter

Teacher's Toolkit for Independent Reading

Jeff Anderson Twitter

Whitney La Rocca Twitter

Patterns of Power

If reading and writing go hand in hand, wouldn’t it make sense to merge your reading and writing workshops occasionally? What would that even look like? And how would students respond?

In this episode, authors Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker (The Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge) describe literacy workshop, how it looks in primary and intermediate classrooms, and how the streamlined nature of literacy workshop lends itself well to online and hybrid teaching.   

L I N K S

The Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge

Study Guide

Remote Learning Guide

Maria's Twitter

Karen's Twitter

Maria's Website

Karen's Website