David said: I assume that Comprehensible Input pretty much sums up the theme of the blog. At some point there needs to be some parameters, I assume, so that it does not stray off to far from the main intent of the blog. My response: This has been much discussed. I am OK with the […]

David Young sent an email to me raising a few points that will be discussed in the next few blog posts here: David’s Point #1: Maybe you could talk about procedures a bit. First, if a person has something to post which does not seem to fit anything listed under “Categories” what should we do?

I just found four comments in my spam folder, which I don’t visit very often. They were all blocked because they contained links to certain other sites. This happened, for example, with a recent comment by Nathan – reproduced below – which happened to contain a link to the ACTFL standards. So if you see that a

Then Diana Noonan was visiting one day and I asked her what a lesson plan for a reading class based on comprehension methods would look like. Like Paul, she tossed what is below off the top of her head for another formal observation I had scheduled for that week. I am very grateful to Paul and Diana

Paul Kirschling from Thomas Jefferson High School was visiting my room last year in the fall and I asked him how he would design a lesson plan for a formal observation of a story the next day. He came up with the following simple and streamlined plan in just a few minutes. We have such treasures

Some of us, not all, will need something to give to administrators each week next fall. If we had a lesson plan bank here as a category it might prove useful. Amazingly, I found a blog entry in the labyrinthe of unpublished stuff from 2008 which mirrors what I am doing now. It was very

Andrew reminded us in a comment here that Nathan wrote about Robert’s new assessment initiative on Michele’s blog yesterday. I put that link here so that I can categorize it under “Assessment/Robert Harrell” just to keep everything related to this topic clear and accessible. This is an important link: http://mjtprs.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/chewing-on-the-actfl-modes/

I have received requests for the specific format that I personally use to test at the end of class. This is in response to the recent thread started here by Andrew Graff. Originally the idea of Susan Gross, this quiz plan works for me and is not being offered as some kind of “way it must be done”:

Andrew sent this: Hi Ben, I am enjoying the blog immensely and reaping tons of benefit from engaging with it. Before I commented more re: the assessment piece, I wanted to do some research [read: googling] about terminology, to make sure that I was not blathering on without dotting my i’s.  (I feel very at

Elissa sent a few stories done by her elementary kids. Like with Angela, this shows the final product, not the process of creating it. The thing I like about it are the cards which teach reading at the same time. Elementary TPRS is not my area, of course, and I do feel it is quite

I think it odd that two of the hot beds for comprehension based instruction are two of the coldest places in the United States: Maine and Alaska. Michele Whaley in Alaska has spearheaded efforts there now for some years. She is a real force, traveling everywhere for trainings, doing all kinds of exchanges with Russia,

When I first started doing what Blaine describes below about waiting for cute answers, I made a lot of very fast strides forward in the method. It is a major concept for me and has never let me down in class: …I believe people who are the most effective at TPRS don’t tell stories. They ask