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This is a persuasive blog on what we should strive for in our classrooms each day. The author, Starr Sackstein - a NYC high school English teacher, suggests that we strive to graduate students "life-ready." My favorite sentence: "Proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening as well as technology and media integration illustrates a readiness for adult life."

Janet, thanks for sharing this important reminder about the core of what we're doing. I get nervous sometimes for my LLD 10th graders and MCAS, but that's mostly because the stakes are so high for them. They are engaged with the literature we read, questioning, challenging, connecting to their own experiences, and this is, of course, what I would hope for. I am counting on this depth to take them through MCAS - it is really hard not to worry, though!

Here is an article from the IRA with great mentor text suggestions for Writer's Workshop.

I love this topic. I have always believed that using picture books beyond elementary school is a great idea. Mitali Perkins will be our visiting author this May. Her latest book Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices might be another useful resource for teachers interested in working with short texts. I believe she only edited the stories that were picked. I have not read it yet, but I just copied and pasted the information from Mitali's website for you to look over. The public library will be ordering mulitple copies and the middle school will hopefully do the same. Though we lack a funding source, it might be a consideration for some type of all school (middle school) read. "Listen in as ten YA authors-some familiar, some new-use their own brand of humor to share their stories about growing up between cultures. Edited by Mitali Perkins, this collection of fiction and nonfiction embraces a mix of stayles as diverse as their authors, from laugh-out-loud funny to wry, ironic, or poignant, in prose, poetry, and comic form. With contributions by Cherry Cheva, Varian Johnson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mitali Perkins, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Debby Rigaud, Francisco X. Stork, Gene Luen Yang, and David Yoo."

I'm glad that I'm not the only one looking for quality mentor texts, and am also glad that others found the information from the IRA helpful. Thank you for adding information of your own. It's all so informative. There are some great resources out there!

I agree with most of what this mother has to say. I like to think that I will feel the same way when I have kids. I'm curious what other parents think...

I definitely agree with the core of what this mother says. I feel that the time that our kids are with us, now, is their training ground for when I'm not there, and it's not fair for me to protect them from taking any "lumps". Sometimes that can mean leaving my 12 year old to manage a situation with her teacher on her own, or resisting making a call or email to the teacher to ask about an assignment that seems too difficult or confusing - this is not anyone in 7th grade! ;) It takes discipline on my part not to jump in to help her, and to let her feel the discomfort of doing something the wrong way or messing up a test because she was so sure that she had studied enough even though I was pretty sure she hadn't. My kids are the center of my world in that I am constantly aware of what's going on for them and constantly monitoring them to make sure all is well; the difference is that most of the time they don't know that I'm paying that kind of attention, because my husband and I work really hard to choose good situations for them where we feel confident to let our kids loose to sort it out (in school, activities, etc.) without jumping in to "save" them all the time.

Wow this was an interesting article. I totally want to share it out on facebook but I try not to be too controversial out there. I had a friend one time that talked about the feminization (if that's a word) of today's male. I guess I'm wondering if kids are not allowed to play rough how will that impact our society later. Will it impact our military.

We have just started teaching informative writing. This guide has great information, some of it grade specific, on why and how to teach this type of writing.

Thanks for sharing this, Jan. I can see how it will be a helpful tool. I like the Thinking Maps that apply to different writing purposes - reminds me a bit of the EmPOWER writing program.

This reminds me how much I respect K-3 and elementary teachers in general. The fundamentals are so important. Thanks for posting this. I'm excited that Common Core emphasizes expository writing. I find it somewhat disingenuous that a lot of high school language arts curriculum is based on analyzing fiction and works of literature, and "proving" theses that are up for interpretation. Expository writing can be so interesting and when inspired by passion for the subject matter, powerful.

Kathy Favazza sent this site out to our staff at Parker. This is the email message: At the PARCC and CCSS trainings that I attended in Chicago I learned of an amazing tool. It's called Newsela. It is a website that takes articles in various topics: War & Peace, Money, Kids, Science and Law and links them to the anchor literacy standards that we all need to address in our subjects. You can set up classes and assign articles for students to read. Some articles have text based follow up questions (those with a small anchor in the top right) that you can assign to students. The coolest feature however is that you can adjust the reading level of the articles!!!!

I've played with this site and it is awesome. You can adjust the reading level of the texts. It has built in assessments like main idea. I highly recommend this resource for grades 4 through middle school.