Literacy with Dan Feigelson

By Alexa Schmidt, principal

Last week, we have had the good fortune to learn from Dan Feigelson, a visiting literacy consultant who has been focusing largely on reading conferences to deepen student comprehension.

In meeting with Dan, his session was called Reading Projects Reimagined: Teaching kids to come up with their own ideas about books. Dan talked about the importance of freedom of thought, how to help students recognize, name and extend their own lines of thinking and ideas, and how to teach independent thinking which is free of teacher prompts. As teachers, we often spend so much time in school telling and guiding students about what to think, and this approach is nurturing student thinking and metacognition.

Punctuation is not an Editing Tool: It's a Crafting Tool

By Stacey Shubitz, Literacy Consultant

I started reading Dan Feigelson’s Book "Practical Punctuation: Lessons on Rule Making and Rule Breaking in Elementary Writing" yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve sat down and read a book on grammar and actually stayed awake. Seriously! Every other book I’ve read on teaching kids how to punctuate, use conventions properly, etc. has made my eyes close. But not Feigelson's book!

Books That Move Us: Reading Projects Reimagined

By Rebekah O'Dell, literacy consultant

You know how the greats always make it look easy? This is the way I feel whenever I get to listen to Katie Ray or Tom Newkirk — they say something clear and simple and beautiful and even common sense, but it absolutely rocks my world.

So it was when I read Dan Feigelson’s Reading Projects Reimagined (Heinemann 2015). After hearing Feigelson speak at NCTE about “revising” reading and his “quick and dirty reading projects”, I knew I had found a strategy for my second semester literature focus. And, quite possibly, a road into student writing about literature. And after digging into the book over winter break, my teaching world was rocked by the book’s simplicity and brilliance.