Summer Spark 2016

The Middle School English department from the University School of Milwaukee will walk you through the proven strategies for close reading fiction and non-fiction created by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst, known as Notice and Note. After years of struggling to teach effective close reading strategies to kids of a wide range of reading ability, we came across Beers and Probst at NCTE. Since then we've been using their books and LOVING their approach because it truly works for all students, from grade 5 on up, encourages independence AND critical thinking, helps students see annotating as helpful and good rather than vague, nebulous and arbitrary, and leads easily into deep analysis of texts.

We will give you lesson outlines, handouts, and expansion ideas that have worked for us, and help you create lessons based on the books you teach.

Come join us for an energetic conversation about helping kids to truly “get” the books we teach.