Inside this Post:  Tired of students forgetting what they’ve learned? Research emphasizes the value of previewing and reviewing. Keep reading for practical, manageable ways to build spacing into your classroom. Travel …

Inside this Post: Need to deepen student investment in graphic organizers? Try differentiating. One of the highest levels of choice we can offer is student-created graphic organizers. Find the details in …

Inside this Post:  Are your graphic organizers getting stale? Unlock the power of specialized graphic organizers, and watch critical thinking soar. (I’ll also be speaking about this topic at a …

Inside this Post: How to maximize student engagement with a simple secret…eye-catching graphic organizers. This is the second post in a series about graphic organizers. Want to start at the …

Inside this Post: If your experience with graphic organizers has been less than enchanting, stick around. This post has simple, specific suggestions for modeling with graphic organizers to increase learning! …

TED Talks are videos that present engaging ideas in 18 minutes or less. Their compact, visual format makes them a great vessel for the middle and high school classroom! Truly, …

Wondering how to create a calm, predictable, and inspiring classroom atmosphere? Let’s start at the beginning! What is classroom atmosphere, and why does it matter? It’s actually quite abstract! Classroom …

Looking to teach students about how character development impacts theme? First, you’ll need to model with some specific, high-interest examples. Students need to know what character development looks like from …

Getting ready to begin student-led literature circles? Literature circles are the perfect opportunity to combine reading, writing, speaking, and listening in an authentic way! But, sometimes the broad nature and …

Are parent-teacher conferences in your near future? Getting organized is important. It can be challenging to communicate everything you want guardians to know in a short 10 or 15 minute …

Ever wondered where to start with vocabulary instruction? Sometimes, it can feel like we are throwing darts in the dark. The target has to be out there somewhere, and if …

Does it ever seem like standardized test writing prompts are intentionally wordy and confusing? If you have stumbled upon this post after finishing your testing for the year, enjoy! For …

Looking to improve student-led discussions? While these conversations may be packed with some of the most powerful skills we can teach students, they certainly pose plenty of challenges. Consider, for …

Searching for engaging ways to build students’ background knowledge? Perhaps you need an activity to help students prepare to read a complex text, to write an essay, or to engage …

What do your students do at the end of the class period? Do those last few minutes ever feel chaotic or unorganized? Without a structured routine, students will often line …

Inside: Is your choice reading program feeling stale? Are the independent reading activities falling flat? We can engage students and keep book love fresh by weaving in new ideas from …

Inside:  Have reading logs on your mind? Still wildly popular, reading logs have serious negative impacts on our students’ relationships with reading. This post is full of honest answers about …

Inside:  Looking for an alternative to covering the syllabus or using awkward ice breakers on the first day of school? Try this multi-faceted approach to help students begin building relationships …

Inside:  Wondering how to help students analyze diversity in literature? This post includes nine reflective questions to help guide conversations. It felt gigantic. The more she thought about it, Hailey …

It’s happened to me frequently. I sit down, head swirling with ideas, clear about the direction I want to go with my instructional sequence. And then…as soon as I try …