A few weeks ago Chris Roberts communicated again by email with Ryan Wertz, the World Language Consultant for the Ohio Dept. of Education. What he got back from Ryan, given what we knew about him up to this point is, in Chris’ words, “damning, powerful and empowering. It may boost morale to see these comments […]

We tend to think that, if the words on the Word Walls are taught and used in class, the kids have acquired them. Is this true? I think that we always assume that they have acquired more than they actually have. Simplicity and narrow and deep gets it. In my level 2 classes, I have

This is about the fifth person in our group, starting with Chris in the early fall, who has been in a position similar to the one described below. This time it’s Jen. I don’t know what to say. Can those who have been there arm Jen with something? Maybe something from the Administrator/Teacher/Parent Re-education category, but what? Honestly, though,

Hi Ben, Before I begin with my bio, I would like to thank you with my heart and soul for the incredible contribution you and this blog have made to my professional life.  I know many feel the same, but I need to tell you myself how truly amazing it is to be part of

Hi Ben, This is my bio. Learning how to use CI and stories is changing my world. It probably saved me from burnout, or something worse. It certainly is making me a more humane, empathetic teacher and person and it is healing me. This is my 24th year teaching. I taught elementary school in the

Reading CI happens in my classroom absolutely like listening CI. The comments about reading below refer to both readings based on stories and the reading of novels. There is a process that we follow. It is so reassuring to have that process, so that we can relax about providing content all the time, which drives

I know that we had a lot of discussion/posts this past week, but skip and I are again focused on taking the weekends off with no new articles. If a new article appears, it will appear because it was time stamped. skip and I have agreed that for us the weekend starts at 3:00 p.m. on Friday

Yesterday a substutute teacher wanting a full time job as a language teacher strolled into my classroom at the beginning of one of my classes and asked to see a story. I obliged, and the class and I decided to be a little slack with the rules, since it was kind of a demo class.

This is from John Piazza: This posting has been prompted by an editorial I read in the NYT today about how a right-wing Christian group has effectively shut down an anti-bullying campaign because they think it is some sort of gay indoctrination. Mix It Up Day is an event that encourages students to have lunch

Bob Patrick sent this: Hi guys, I’ve found these two TED talks this week that so speak into what we are doing in CI classrooms.  This is not about the CI work, technique or even school stuff.  It’s about the soul work that we must be doing on ourselves and what real courage is.  It

The commonly accepted approach to asking a story is to make sure that the kids have acquired all the structures in the story except the three new ones and to design the script in that way. People say that if the entire body of the story isn’t already familiar to the kids, the story won’t

Andrea wrote in a comment today: I am right there with you [Jennifer]. I feel really lost too. The feeling gives me so much anxiety – too much anxiety. I just want to know where I am going with this in my classes. I feel pretty good about it with my French I’s and OK