In her book In the company of children, Joanne Hindley invites you inside her third-grade New York City classroom to "have a look" as she describes her reading and writing workshops. Joanne extends the invitation once again through a series of four video programs that give you a close-up look at mini-lessons and conferences during those workshops. In the two programs on reading mini-lessons and writing mini-lessons, she explores and rethinks the resources,...

Since its publication, teachers throughout the world have made The Daily 5 one of the most widely read books in education. Through this proven structure, teachers experience for themselves the power of students gaining independence and monitoring their own behaviors. Join Gail and Joan as they work with third- and fifth-grade teachers in two diverse Midwest classrooms where the Daily 5 has been in place for several years. As the popularity of the...

Edna Pontellier has everything that a woman and mother should want - two wonderful sons, a husband, and good financial fortune. But still, she feels like something may be missing. While vacationing with her family, she meets a young man who shows affection and opens her mind to adventure and freedom. Edna’s desire for freedom and independence begins to fester in her heart, and she finds that she is increasingly disenchanted with the responsibilities...

Watch Mark Overmeyer as he conducts six individual writing conferences and one group conference with students in grades three and five. Mark describes how he uses conferences to meet the needs of all writers, including beginning English language learners, advanced students and students who struggle to develop ideas when they write. A bonus section includes a peer conference, in which Mark comments on how to help students support each other. In each...

You can read books or attend workshops about how to teach writing, but there's no substitute for seeing master teachers put ideas into practice with real kids. When students write takes us into the classrooms at Bailey's Elementary School in the outskirts of Washington, DC, where teachers wrestle with the questions of what it means to become an effective writer and what is a teacher's role in developing students' competence as writers. The four videos...

Organizing for Literacy is a professional development series for implementing a balanced early literacy program based on apprenticeship theory. The series presents a complete early literacy resource, with the option of using individual videos to focus on a specific area of need. The programs illustrate the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning across a range of reading and writing events. Each program is designed to allow you to view it in its...

The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister The Virginian is a 1902 novel by the American author Owen Wister, set in Wyoming Territory during the 1880's. It describes the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch and is considered the first true fictional western ever written, aside from short stories and pulp dime novels, though modern scholars debate this.

Editing invitations takes you into Jeff Anderson's sixth-grade classroom as Jeff demonstrates how he naturally links grammar instruction to writer's craft through his 'Invitations to Notice'. The invitations are a warm-up activity used at the beginning of writer's workshops to help students learn to play close attention to mechanics, style and craft. They can be used as an alternative to daily oral language for those teachers who are looking for stronger...

Explains the concept of homonyms and homophones.