In this strategy guide, you'll learn to model how students can make three different kinds of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world). Students then use this knowledge to find their own personal connections to a text.
Making Connections
Grades
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Introducing New Content with Seed Discussions
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this strategy guide, you'll learn how to elicit ideas and conversation about new concepts or content by effectively holding a Seed Discussion in your classroom.
Grades
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Brainstorming and Reviewing Using the Carousel Strategy
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
This strategy guide introduces Carousel Brainstorming, also known as Rotating Review, and offers suggestions to implement this technique in your classroom for brainstorming about new topics or reviewing learned information.
Grades
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Using the RAFT Writing Strategy
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.
Grades
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Socratic Seminars
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
This strategy guide explains Socratic seminars and offers practical methods for applying the approach in your classroom to help students investigate multiple perspectives in a text.
Grades
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Supporting Student Comprehension in Content Area Reading
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this strategy guide, you'll learn a few simple, yet powerful, techniques to encourage students to use peer talk and writing to enhance their understanding of content area texts.
Grades
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Reading with Purpose in the Content Areas
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this strategy guide, you'll learn how to organize students and instruction to establish a sense of purpose for reading authentic texts in the content areas.
Grades
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Facilitating Participation with Silent Conversations
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students
thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.
Grades
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Depend on the Text! How to Create Text-Dependent Questions
Grades
1 - 3
Strategy Guide
Teachers need to create text-dependent questions to elicit close reading. When answering these questions, students learn to reread and think deeply about the text.
Grades
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Promote Deep Thinking! How to Choose a Complex Text
Grades
1 - 3
Strategy Guide
Complex texts promote deep thinking and critical analysis by students. Through close reading of a complex text, students' independent reading abilities also increase.
Grades
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Reading on the Go
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this Strategy Guide, learn how to prepare yourself and your students for reading and note-taking in mobile environments.
Grades
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Get Close to Think Deeply: Creating Primary-Level Close Readings
Grades
1 - 3
Strategy Guide
Close readings allow primary students to engage with complex texts. Through repeated reading, students build a deep understanding of the text and critical thinking skills.
Grades
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Making the Reading Process Visible through Performance Assessment
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
Effective differentiation begins with purposeful assessment. In this strategy guide, you'll learn how to construct an authentic performance-based reading assessment that will give you access to students' thinking before, during, and after reading.
Grades
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Introducing Ideas and Vocabulary with the Concept Sort
Grades
K - 8
Strategy Guide
A Concept Sort is a vocabulary and comprehension strategy used with students to introduce new topics and/or familiarize students with new vocabulary.
Grades
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Teaching with Zooming Slideshows through Prezi
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
Through Prezi, a web application, students create "zooming" presentations for various purposes, such as presenting research, defending an opinion, or sharing a digital story.
Grades
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Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.
Grades
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Speak to Me: Teaching with Voki
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
Through Voki, a Web 2.0 tool, students create customizable avatars for class presentations for various purposes, such as presenting biographical information, expressing an opinion, or reading a poem.
Grades
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Promoting Student-Directed Inquiry with the I-Search Paper
Grades
8 - 12
Strategy Guide
The sense of curiosity behind research writing gets lost in some school-based assignments. This Strategy Guide provides the foundation for cultivating interest and authority through I-Search writing, including publishing online.
Grades
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Inquiry Charts (I-Charts)
Grades
3 - 12
Strategy Guide
This guide introduces I-Charts, a strategy that enables students to generate meaningful questions about a topic and organize their writing.
Grades
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Question the Author (QtA)
Grades
3 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this guide, you'll be introduced to a strategy that requires students to challenge their understanding and solidify their knowledge while reading a text.