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Cooking Up Great Instruction
While we both enjoy puttering around the kitchen, Kim, especially, loves to cook. If you visit her home, you will find an extensive collection of cookbooks. The cookbooks Kim refers to most often,...
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Open a World of Possible with Engaging Literacy Instruction
Open a World of Possible is an initiative by Scholastic that celebrates the moments that turned people into readers. Dedicated to helping those moments happen again and again for children so that they...
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Six Ways to Start the School Year: Back-to-School Stories from Great Books
We love stories of children learning to read and write. While most of these accounts come from the teachers with whom we work and the professional books we read, we especially love when we find reading...
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Classroom Community and the Common Core: Lesson Sets for Elementary Classrooms
This time two years ago, the educational community was super-focused on becoming acquainted with the Common Core State Standards. We were exploring questions, such as what do the Common Core documents...
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Attending Our Children’s Sporting Events and Other Bad Habits
Recently, we encountered this three minute video essay by Daniel Pink that you should watch before reading the blog post that follows. After watching this video essay, we had many thoughts, including,...
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Smart is a Fixed Mindset
“If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.” —Michelangelo in reference to the Sistine Chapel. Conversations about mindset often begin with talk about whether a belief or idea...
View ArticleWhat is Your Banana? Rethinking Common Literacy Practices
Most of us have peeled a banana the same way for our whole lives, having learned from our parents, who likely peeled bananas from the top. In this video, which has been viewed more than 11 million...
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Giving Thanks
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank You,’ it will be enough.”...
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Professional Soulmates
As of late, Jan has had commitments that have required all of her time. Because Jan is busy, I, Kim, will write a first-person Slice of Life. Once again, thank you to all of the fine folks at Two...
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Brave Hearts
In The Girl With A Brave Heart: A Tale from Tehran by Rita Rohanforuz and Vali Mintzi (Barefoot Books, 2013), Shiraz, the main character finds herself at the home of an old woman who is tired and...
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Beyond the “Gist”
Yesterday, Jan discovered that her thirteen-year-old’s shower routine consisted of getting in the shower, turning on the water, letting it run over him for a while, turning off the water, and...
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Play as Part of the Writing Process
Last week, Jan flew to Florida so that she and Kim could work face-to-face. While our chance meeting over Twitter four years ago has evolved into a deep friendship, most of our collaboration...
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Tripwires, The Prompting Funnel, and Letting Students Do the Work
Two weeks ago, Jan was with Kim in Florida, where we experienced the powerful advantages of face-to-face collaboration. Jan stayed in Kim’s guest “suite,” where the guest bathroom toilet runs unless...
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Yank and Pull–Is there an Easier Way?
One morning, on an early morning bicycle ride, Kim noticed a small bird tugging at a piece of straw stuck to a clump of dirt that, after being driven over repeatedly, appeared permanently matted to...
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Making Learning Stick: Pirates, Family Excursions, and Making Lessons Engaging
Making learning stick is not a new point of interest for us; in fact most of what we write–in one way or another–relates to deepening learning by making lessons engaging. Kim’s recent experience on a...
View ArticleSeeing Red: You Get What You Look For
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” ~William Blake In You are a Badass by Jen Sincero, chapter 17, titled, “It’s So Easy Once You Figure Out...
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This We Believe: Some Core Beliefs Behind WHO’S DOING THE WORK
Helping students become more independent and more proficient as readers and understanding what prompts and inhibits students’ movement along a learning continuum has driven our professional inquiry...
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Orange-Polka Dotted Umbrella Trees
When we were together in Florida, we took walks together along a neatly manicured path in Kim’s neighborhood. As we walked, we talked about the trees and flora and wildlife and how different it was...
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