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We share evidence-based K-12 learning strategies that empower you to improve education.

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Social and Emotional Techniques That Help Students Focus on Academic Progress at Mount Desert Elementary

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John Seely Brown on Motivating Learners (Big Thinkers Series)

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A Parent's Guide to 21st-Century Learning

Blogs on Literacy

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Common Core and Print

Jonathan OlsenFebruary 8, 2013

Tags Common Core Standards, Comprehensive Assessment, Literacy, High (9-12), English Language Arts

Ten years from now, maybe sooner, you'll be able to find this article and laugh at its concept. Defending print -- how 20th century. As more schools move towards 1:1 computer-to-student ratios, as textbooks become digital and periodicals move online, it will become increasingly rare for students to avoid the glare from computer screens. However, my experiences in the classroom have shown that students can benefit tremendously from reading physical copies of print media.

Deeper Learning: Defining Twenty-First Century Literacy

Rebecca AlberJanuary 21, 2013

Tags College Readiness, Literacy, Media Literacy, All Grades

Only a decade and a few years in, how can we fully describe the twenty-first century learner? So far, this we do know: She is a problem solver, critical thinker, and an effective collaborator and communicator. We also know that a deeper learning environment is required in order to nurture and grow such a learner.

Weaving Debate into the Writing Process

Ashley ProphetJanuary 18, 2013

Tags Best Practices, Lesson Plans, Literacy, High (9-12), English Language Arts

Organized debates are an engaging way to help students discover, explore and organize ideas during the writing process. However, neither my teacher colleagues nor students share my enthusiasm. To find out why, I asked how they felt about using debate in the classroom. Here were their responses:

Two Questions for Penny Kittle: On Teacher Burnout and Motivating Teenage Writers

Todd FinleyJanuary 9, 2013

Tags Literacy, Student Engagement, Teacher Burnout, High (9-12), English Language Arts

Penny Kittle

Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in High School Writing is a compelling and seminal work on the practicalities of teaching writing to high school English students from New Hampshire teacher and literacy/instructional coach Penny Kittle. You can also watch the speech she gave when that book earned her the 2009 NCTE Britton Award. I've used the book and accompanying DVD for three years now, and my English education pre-service teachers have called the unequivocally helpful text "warm, inspiring and intelligent," "100 % heart," and hailed the author as "a writer's teacher of writing."

Parent Involvement in Early Literacy

Erika BurtonJanuary 8, 2013

Tags Best Practices, Literacy, Parental Involvement, Primary (K-2), English Language Arts

Parent involvement is the number one predictor of early literacy success and future academic achievement. However, according to a 2007 report by National Endowment for the Arts, there are more literate people in the United States who don't read than those who are actually illiterate. How do we change that pattern for the future of our children?

The Best of 2012: My Favorite Books for Parents and Educators

Mark PhillipsDecember 20, 2012

Tags Education Reform, Literacy, Teacher Development

I hope that many of you took a peek at my blog about my favorite 2012 movies for educators and parents. Well here's phase two, my favorite 2012 books for teachers and parents.

Winter Reading: What's on Your Bedside Table?

Elena AguilarDecember 11, 2012

Tags Literacy, Teacher Development, English Language Arts

I gestured to the stack of books next to my bed and said to my nine-year-old son, "Those are the books I'm going to read this winter break!"

"All of them!?" he exclaimed. "I don't think you can read all of those."

He might be right. I've gathered nine books, over 3500 pages of text, that I'm hoping to devour starting this weekend when my break begins. After a year and a half of almost exclusively reading education-related books, I'm craving stories and beautifully crafted sentences . . . and plot and character and action and historical fiction and science fiction . . . and that almost trace-like state that we enter when we're consumed by a novel.

Five-Minute Film Festival: National Day on Writing

Amy Erin Borovoy (aka VideoAmy)October 19, 2012

Tags Literacy, National, All Grades, English Language Arts

I'm excited to celebrate the 2012 National Day on Writing on October 19th and 20th. Sponsored by the National Writing Project, the National Council of Teachers of English, and a whole host of other great organizations (including Edutopia!), it's an opportunity to share your text with a mass audience, and a great way to bring awareness to the value of writing as a means of communication in the 21st century.

Teen Read Week: Creating a Text-Rich School

Heather Wolpert-GawronOctober 15, 2012

Tags Literacy, Student Engagement, All Grades

I'm a literature addict. And as a teacher, my mission is to spread this addiction to my own students. But I have a greater, more sinister, goal than that this year. I want to spread it to my entire school. And to do that, I have to allow literature to leak out of my classroom and into my school at large.

Five-Minute Film Festival: Banned Books

Amy Erin Borovoy (aka VideoAmy)September 28, 2012

Tags Current Events, Literacy, National, All Grades, English Language Arts

September 30th kicks off Banned Books Week, a celebration of the freedom to read all across the country. This year is the event's thirtieth anniversary, as the battle against censorship marches on. In this digital society, where we have access to most any kind of information at our fingertips, there are still those who would limit our rights when it comes to what we read. While book censorship is almost always born from the best of intentions -- most often to protect the innocents -- it's a threat to our first amendment rights and something we should all rally to fight off.