A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time, K-2

In "A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time" Alison and Cheryl explain how choice-time workshops can be structured to help English language learners imagine, create, and explore language through play. They outline two units of study for choice-time workshops, the first using open-ended materials, the other using literature to inspire play.

"A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time" is part of the "Workshop Help Desk" series. About the "Workshop Help Desk" series The "Workshop Help Desk "series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your writers, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the "Workshop Help Desk" series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study for Teaching Writing series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, curricular calendars, overview presentations, frequently asked questions, and information on the companion principal's guide and the Workshop Help Desk series visit unitsofstudy.com.

Lucy Calkins is the author of the best-selling grade-by-grade Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades K-8 and Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K-8 series, which have quickly become an indispensable part of classroom life in tens of thousands of schools around the world, the new Up the Ladder: Accessing Grades 3-6 Units in Narrative, Information, and Opinion Writing series, and classroom essentials such as the groundbreaking TCRWP Classroom Libraries and the Workshop Help Desk series. Lucy is also the author or coauthor of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing, Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, Grades K-8 , Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement, and One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. In her role as the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, a New York City - based organization that has influenced literacy instruction around the globe for more than thirty years, Lucy has developed a learning community of brilliant and dedicated teacher educators who have supported hundreds of thousands of teachers, principals, superintendents, and policy-makers in schools that bear their distinctive mark: a combination of joy and rigor in the classrooms, and entire school communities - teachers, principals, parents, kids - who wear a love of reading and writing on their sleeves. Lucy is the Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, Columbia University where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program - a masters and doctoral program that brings brilliant teachers and coaches to TCRWP schools everywhere and to the Project itself. She and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan.Alison Porcelli is coauthor (with Kristi Mraz and Cheryl Tyler) of Purposeful Play. She also coauthored A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time, with Cheryl. Alison is Vice Principal at PS 59 in Manhattan and worked for eight years as a senior staff developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, where she consulted nationally and internationally to bring exceptional literacy practices to schools. Before that, she was a kindergarten teacher. Alison's playground is in Bedford, NY where she resides with her husband, Tom, and son, Preston.Cheryl Tyler is coauthor of Purposeful Play with Kristi Mraz and Alison Porceli. She has worked extensively in New York City schools as a kindergarten teacher, staff developer, consultant, and the principal of PS 277 in the South Bronx. She is currently the director of Reading Rescue at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Cheryl and Alison are coauthors of A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time, K-2.