If you're looking for authentic reasons to encourage your students to go back into a text and find evidence to support their thinking, we hear you. Monologue takes the skill of finding evidence to a new level. It is a literary empowerment tool for students. Drafting a powerful monologue invites students to read across a set of texts that includes different sources about one subject in order to glean an understanding from multiple perspectives.

In honor of National Poetry Month, here is an excerpt from Kwame Alexander’s popular book The Write Thing, which showcases how to use poetry in Writing Workshop to motivate and engage all students through the writing process. In the book, Kwame stresses the importance of sharing your published work.

Have you ever wondered why some kids become voracious readers and others avoid reading like it’s a laundry basket full of stinky socks? We asked top literacy experts around the country what they feel is the key to building a love of reading in students. Here is what they had to say.

In a previous post, we shared Kwame’s answers to students’ burning questions. Kwame answers educators’ questions about using poetry in the classroom to enhance and support instruction. These are just a few of the questions educators wanted to know about.

How can we help students see the relationship among their word study, reading, and writing? Here are four great tips to help strengthen students’ knowledge and independence, as you introduce real-world reading and writing through balanced literacy instruction.

Rhythm and rhyme have a unique ability to embed words and concepts indelibly in our brains. Here’s how you can use rap to instill important information in students’ memories! With the rap protocol provided here, guide students to write their own raps about themes and concepts from complex texts!