Thoughtful Learning Blog

Thoughtful Learning Blog

The Thoughtful Learning blog features articles about English language arts, 21st century skills, and social-emotional learning. Insights come from the teachers, writers, and developers at Thoughtful Learning, who have been creating top-notch instructional materials for more than 40 years.

In your dream classroom, what does a good discussion look like? For the longest time, my dream resembled a scene from Dead Poets Society. I pictured myself facilitating lively conversations about literature, with energized students speaking up, sharing insights, talking through difficult ideas, and working toward new understandings.

In reality, the reading discussions in my English classes were much more muted. Even the best ones were dominated by a few outgoing students and one loud teacher.

I knew I needed to make some changes, beginning with how I perceived a “good” discussion.

I assumed—incorrectly—that a good discussion must be verbal. By doing so, I excluded quiet students and others who wanted to contribute but needed more time to process new information.

With those students in mind, I began offering more opportunities to engage with reading outside of whole-class discussions, including low-stakes writing such as freewriting, journaling, and chat app conversations.

Those opportunities helped, but I saw the most engagement by introducing collective notes.

What Are Collective Notes?

Collective notes are a virtual space for students to respond to course texts and each other. Each week in a shared Google document, you can post a set of discussion questions about assigned readings. Students pick and choose questions to answer on the main document and post comments to each other in the margins.

This live document grows as the year progresses, becoming a crowdsourced library of notes, conversations, and reflections on books, essays, videos, articles, and other class materials.

Students working together

The first weeks of school feel like a whirlwind. Students enter our classrooms full of wonder but also worry: Am I smart enough? Will people accept me? Do I belong here?

You can ease their worries by building a sense of belonging. If students are to learn with confidence, trust their voices and ideas, and build positive relationships, they need to feel that they belong.

Below we’ve outlined some of our favorite activities for helping students feel welcome and wanted.

Boy writing in notebook

Not all the writing your students do needs to be in formal, graded assignments. 

In fact, most should occur in low-stakes situations, where students can brainstorm, wonder, create, practice, reflect, and apply skills without fear of grades or criticism. 

A writer’s notebook offers the perfect canvas for such writing. Writing in a paper or digital notebook for 10–20 minutes a day helps students build a writing identity, gather topic ideas, and experiment with new skills and techniques. 

Girl hugging question mark

When the new school year begins, students will enter classrooms feeling a range of emotions, not the least of which is fear. They may wonder: Do I belong? Am I smart enough? Will people tease me? And, most importantly, Am I safe here?

If students feel unsafe and unsupported, they won’t be able to pay attention, focus, take risks, and learn.

You can create a safe environment for learning not by ignoring fear, but by acknowledging it and helping students work through it.

July is flying by in a flash. We hope you are spending time relaxing, refreshing, and recuperating—even as back-to-school season approaches ever so quickly.  
One of the best ways to soften the transition from summer to the new school year is through John Dewey’s favorite practice: reflection. Dewey believed deep learning happens not through experience but through reflecting on experience. 

Teacher at desk giving student feedback

Commenting on grammar issues in student writing presents a tricky teaching situation. You don’t want students to flounder without support, but you also don’t want them to drown in red corrections. 

Thankfully, a happy middle ground exists. 

Follow these tips to deliver quick, effective grammar feedback. Then download the free resource to see the advice in action. 

You've given your students helpful writing feedback all year long. Now it's time to reverse roles.

Before summer break, survey your students about their learning experiences. Students will reflect on their progress and growth as writers, and you'll receive first-hand accounts of what worked and what didn't work in your classroom.

Featured Download: End-of-Year Writing Survey

Hand out this survey to gather information about students' attitudes, behaviors, and learning.

Novels and short stories are filled with emotions. The characters in them experience the ups and downs of the human condition, often in dramatic fashion. And as we read along, we feel things, too—about the characters and ourselves. For these reasons, literature offers a gateway to social-emotional learning in your classroom.

When students analyze the emotions of the characters they are reading about, they gain not only a greater understanding of the text but also a greater understanding of their own emotions.

The last months of school go by in a flash. Writing prompts can help your students gather their memories of the year and prepare for what the summer holds.

These low-stakes activities also invite your students to see writing as a fun, meaningful, and—dare we say—joyful activity. The prompts help students honor their experiences and reflect on the school year.

My Top 10

Students create a Top 10 List for the school year. Topics can range from serious (Top 10 Things I Will Miss) to silly (Top 10 Worst Sounds at School).

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