Lucy Calkins is my idol; I admit it.  My guru.  I’m a groupie.  How can I ever thank her for everything I’ve learned from her?  Her series on teaching writing workshops have not only helped me, but have helped any teacher who comes to our school not knowing how to teach writing workshop.  Yes, her texts are wordy, but it’s like watching a master teacher teach and hearing a voiceover of why she does everything she does.

And now, she’s come out with a reading workshop series.  We’re using it from 3rd – 7th grade.  Who else would think to teach kids reading research to help them understand how to be good readers??  Each and every lesson is transferable to our reading lives–forever.  We’re using Google Docs to collaborate on units based on her units of study with the adjustments that we make for grade level.