Topic: Video

When students write Reading Responses about a text, they have something to say in class. It may be a minor point, or it may be a major point, but it is a concrete thought and it is tied to a specific part of the text.

In The Six Academic Writing Assignments, author Jim Burke aims to help better understand that nature of the academic writing assignments we give our students through the examination of these six different types of assignments we already give in one form or another.

Feedback is key to student learning. Since writing conferences are conversations between students and teachers, they provide opportunities for two types of feedback: student to teacher, and teacher to student.

We call it 'workshop' for a reason; the learning time is about the work children do. Children need to make connections from one day's learning to the next; it's the story of their meaningful work and the how, what, and why of their learning.

Learning never occurs in a straight line. Lisa Cleaveland and Katie Wood Ray, co-authors of Getting Started with Beginning Writers, know that this is especially true when it comes to learning to write.

Sketchnoting can add some fun and variety to the otherwise routine practice of note taking, but let's delve deeper into the why and not just be enamored with the how.

In a world marked by histories, doctrines, policies, and beliefs that can sometimes drive us apart, what we do is vital. Mathematics, history, arts, sciences, writing, and reading matter immensely. But these disciplines are not the entirety of our work. They cannot be.

Beginning with poems, we can teach students to recognize craft and deepen their understanding of it across genres and beyond specific assignments.

Design adds a dimension to our thinking that might seem expendable, but when embraced becomes increasingly valued. Design decisions that involve color, font, and style matter here because they help make our thinking more memorable.

The six types of writing assignments represent the way we really work, the assignments we actually give, and what we can ask students to do within the constraints of time, class size, student needs, and available resources.

Why do we learn? It's a question principals always have on their mind. Children and adults, students of school, and students of life learn with greatest investment when they are engaged in what they are doing, when they feel that their learning is meaningful and relevant.

Developing an understanding of text characteristics offers you a crucial context for understanding what to expect from readers. To determine whether students 'get it,' we have to know what 'it' is.

The use of sketchnotes is gaining in momentum and credibility in business and education Like so many popular concepts, though, the topical lexicon can be confusing.

Struggle is how we learn. Rich tasks provoke productive struggle, during which students actively struggle through a problem as they work to make sense of it.

Our aim should be to ensure that every minute is packed with thinking, reading, writing, lots of talk, and lots of books. To that end we need to reexamine the assumption that students can read only one book at a time.

Before you get started on your journey of making books in writing workshop, there are a few things you need to know about the practice.

What happens if we under scaffold a child and he’s not successful? We work with the child to fix it. Everyone—every child in our readers’ workshop, every teacher, every adult, every human—fails and is disengaged at some point.

Understanding as you're reading helps you to engage with the text, read accurately, read with fluency, understand what the author is saying, and think beyond the text. In essence, comprehension is everything.