Author, Jeff Zwiers and Contributer Marie Crawford identify five communication skills that we should strategically teach and coach our students to develop in their book, Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understanding. They are: Elaborate and Clarify Support Ideas with Examples Build On and/or Challenge Ideas Paraphrase Synthesize As I explored the […]

During a recent PLC observation, where I was invited to provide coaching, teachers, their instructional coach, and principal were observing a video clip of a teacher’s writing lesson. In the section they were observing, the teacher had students on the floor around her as she reviewed writing components and connected them to a recent activity […]