Ten Strategies That Will Turn Every Teacher Into a Literacy Teacher provides teachers and school leaders with a variety of simple-yet-innovative literacy strategies that will enhance the learning within any classroom. Topics to be addressed include differentiated methods for increasing content-specific vocabulary, how to build rapport with students and parents through writing, and engaging ways for students to demonstrate their learning. Participants will leave with a clear vision of how to not only increase, but also improve, the literacy within their classes.

Download and complete this document as a part of the requirements for Evidence of Preparation and Planning. An example of a completed table is included.

In this English Journal article, Franklin shares strategies for teaching students how to engage with each other more meaningfully as peer respondents to writing.

“They Say / I Say” identifies the key rhetorical moves in academic writing, showing students how to frame their arguments in the larger context of what others have said and providing templates to help them make those moves. And, because these moves are central across all disciplines, the book includes chapters on writing in the sciences, writing in the social sciences, and-new to this edition-writing about literature.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the tundra and how it can illustrate ecological concepts, relationships, and changes.

In this English Journal article, Turley and Gallagher review the purposes and uses of rubrics as a tool of assessment in writing classrooms. They offer four questions intended to “push educators to deliberately articulate ‘judgments about the uses of rubrics’ and why they will or will not use them for assignments.”

This article describes robots that are helping scientists explore the Gakkel Ridge deep below the Arctic Ocean and links to informational text about them. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

In this blended lesson supporting literacy skills, students watch video dramatizations of Percy Julian's struggles with racism and how he refused to let it limit his possibilities in life. Students develop their literacy skills as they explore an English language arts focus on understanding character. During this process, they read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and interactive activities. This resource is part of the Inspiring Middle School Literacy Collection.

Website providing descriptions and tutorials of various assessment types and ways to design them in inclusive ways.

Although this chapter is part of a larger set of chapters on teaching first-year writing, this specific chapter deals with general principles related to creating good assignment prompts.

In this Writers Who Care blog post, Kim Johnson describes a series of strategies she used with her students to practice writing collaboratively in a way that would support the transfer of these writing strategies to a new writing task (a standardized test). Teachers may find this resource useful as they consider how to develop and implement writing strategies throughout a writing unit or to find examples of how to build writing strategies during collaborative writing experiences.

This article discusses the strategy of using discrepant events in elementary science instruction. It includes links to four video clips of the sun's path in the Arctic or Antarctica.

In this Writers Who Care blog post, Amy Worob shares a set of strategies related to mentor texts that she uses in her writing classroom. This resource will help give teachers examples and ideas about how to use mentor texts to develop writers’ strategies in their classes.

Provides districts, charters, and schools with an evidence-based framework and self-assessment tool to identify strengths and areas for growth to improve student literacy outcomes; also provides LEAs, building administrators, teachers, and other stakeholders with evidence-based practices that will yield positive literacy outcomes for students.

In this text, the authors provide research-based foundations for the use of young adult literature as complex texts. In the first three chapters the authors provide an accessible explanation and discussion of the three components of text complexity. The chapters and materials that follow use well-known and often award-winning young adult titles to exemplify these principles.

This article highlights hands-on and inquiry-based science lessons that teach about the water cycle and provides lessons that integrate literacy skills with the science investigations.

This article describes ways to supplement a science unit on the water cycle with the book Water Dance by Thomas Locker. Ideas for art, writing, poetry, and creative movement are included.

In this issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explore what the polar regions can teach us about the water cycle and the states and changes of matter. Find lesson plans about the many forms of water, ice, and snow found in the polar regions and how to use science notebooks to integrate literacy and science.