Collaborative Reading Workshop: Interview with Jolene [S4 E83]

Listen to the full episode on collaborative reading workshop below:

Today’s episode is particularly exciting because it is a guest episode with Jolene Heinemann, who co-authored the novel Choice & Voice: How to Champion Lifelong Literacy through Collaborative Reader Workshop. She is currently a high school teacher outside of Chicago who is passionate about choice reading. We share a lot of similar ideals on the importance of making reading in the classroom more applicable to what it looks like in the real world.

In this episode, Jolene shares what choice reading looks like in her classroom and how she holds her students accountable. You may be surprised to hear that she does not grade independent reading, rather she utilizes other methods to document her student’s progress. One way that  Jolene does this is through reading workshop, in which she provides a detailed explanation of what that could look like and how to get the school community involved. 

Amanda actually got the opportunity to go to Jolene’s school and participate in a reader workshop. Pretty amazing, right? This episode is the interview they had following the workshop.

All of the processes and insight Jolene provides are so valuable and geared towards creating lifelong readers. We hope you are able to easily implement these suggestions into your own classroom in the near future!

Topics Covered:

  • Why choice reading is so important to grow literacy skills

  • Different options for incorporating choice reading into your daily schedule

  • Factors to consider when it comes to grading independent reading

  • The process of integrating choice reading into reading workshop

  • How to get the community involved with collaborative reading workshop

Resources

Related Episodes:

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Amanda Cardenas