In Alan Blankstein and Pedro Noguera’s groundbreaking new work, Excellence through Equity, contributor Susan Szachowicz tells the compelling story of the transformation of Brockton High School—a school serving a racially- and socioeconomically-diverse population that had been ranked one of the lowest-performing schools in Massachusetts—into what
Everyday there’s so much talk about science. Think about it—you’re either hearing about a new cure for a dreaded disease, a new pill for weight loss, an astronaut planning to live for a year in space, or a car that can run without gas and
We’re very pleased to announce that Rigorous Reading by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey has been selected as a 2015 winner of the Teachers’ Choice Awards in the category of Professional Development. This award is presented by Learning Magazine, which has a circulation of 150,000. The Teachers’
Daily instruction on comprehension in reading During the last 30 years, scholars on learning-to-read have developed and studied a number of practical avenues to teach reading— particularly how to teach students to find the meaning in text (see, especially, Duffy, G.G. (2003) Explaining Reading, N.Y.: Guilford
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” ― Voltaire “Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” – Tony Robbins “Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.” – Francis Bacon “The important thing is not to stop
The Common Core does a pretty good job of laying out some key cognitive skills students need to be ready for career or college. But here’s the bold claim I’ll spend this post supporting: if you aim at the Common Core goals alone, emphasizing the four
Having established that argument is a big deal and worth much of our time and energy as teachers and students, let’s spend some time examining reading and writing today. I am always tweaking the non-freaked out approach (as you’ll see by comparing this post’s diagram with
Read Part One of this series. As you can see in the diagram, I think it’s impossible to even approach the intent of the Common Core without ensuring frequent and high-quality reading, writing, and speaking. Each of these elements is something we must get better at
Before I introduce what I’ve come to call the “non-freaked out approach” to Common Core literacy intruction (pictured above), let me first do a bit of work introducing how I came to rest in these five essential practices. Keep in mind that, throughout all of
I respect Jim Burke a lot. Here's why: He's a prolific author of helpful books for teachers, and, get this: he still teaches; He's a co-author on the high school edition of They Say / I Say (I partially explain my obsession with this book here and here); In addition to a