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Book Review: Book Love

By Kelly Virgin

What better way to build community in a classroom than by building a community of readers.  Penny Kittle details just how to do that in Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers.  Kittle’s book reads like a step-by-step account of how to turn even the most adamant of non-readers into eager and thoughtful book consumers.

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Community-Building for All Students, All Year

By Diane Esolen Dougherty

Several years ago Time magazine devoted its cover story to the latest wunderkind educational reformer.  It was an in-depth look at “state of the art” practices in education, particularly in teacher accountability.  One anecdote from the article was telling, at least to me.  The reformer was doing a walk-through in an elementary school in the district.  After observing a teacher for several minutes (yes, I wrote minutes), her decision was made.  “I’ve seen everything I need to see,” she said.  Nothing of merit was happening in that third-grade classroom.  The teacher was conducting a class meeting, and class meetings are not instructional.  All class time was to be devoted solely to instruction. Read more

Building Community: A Blogiversary

By Janice Ewing

On a mid-summer evening in 2013, a small group of PAWLP Fellows sat down with plates of pasta to devour and an idea to develop—a blog that would invite and encourage all PAWLP fellows to write, share, and connect. The idea had been simmering for a while but was finally ready to come to a full boil. Read more

Literacy Rocks!

ILD poster Eileen

Created by 5th grade students this summer in the Young Writers/Young Readers Program.

Celebrating International Literacy Day

By Lynne R. Dorfman

International Literacy Day, celebrated this year on Monday, September 8th, helps us revitalize our commitment to the nurturing of literacy lives – both children and adults – by focusing attention on literacy successes in our classroom, school, community, and networks on twitter, facebook, and other social media forms. This year’s theme, “Lift Off to Literacy,” inspires students to shoot for the stars. We ask you to share the message that building a literacy habit takes just a little time each day.   Read more

It’s our Blogiversary! Highlights from Our First Year

We are  celebrating the one year anniversary of the PAWLP blog, and what a year it’s been!  To celebrate our one year “blogiversary,” we’ve collected some posts from this past year that may be particularly useful to teachers as a new school year begins.

So in case you missed them, here are a “baker’s dozen” – thirteen blog posts with some practical tips and inspiration. We hope that you enjoy reading our blog and encourage you to comment, ask questions, and share your own experiences. We would love to hear from you! Read more