Text Sets and Trade Books

Professional Development Opportunities

We are happy to work with your team, school, or district in your efforts to design curriculum and develop classroom practices that support diverse learners. We’re happy to customize the offerings below in various combinations. For example, you might want one or both of us for a full day session on site in your district, but then you may want us to work virtually on an ongoing basis asynchronously.

Please use our contact form to reach out to us.

Testimonials:

"Our partnership has brought both academic rigor and student engagement to the forefront for our teachers, providing invaluable strategies for using a variety of children's literature to support students exploring topics that are relevant to their lives."

- District Leadership

"Seeing the way the texts were thoughtfully structured, as well as the idea to contribute to learning through multiple formats, I feel really confident that I can find appropriate items that will help my kids find a personal connection [with the topic]."

-Classroom Teacher

"I really enjoyed seeing how Mary Ann creates a sequence for the text set. Every step had a purpose and topic that allowed for the building of multiple ideas."

-Classroom Teacher

Implementing Text Sets

- How can text sets help you engage students and meet the needs of diverse learners in language arts, social studies, science and beyond?
- How can a text set approach to teaching and learning model inquiry for your students?
- How do you get started working with text sets?
- How do you incorporate texts you are already using within a text set approach?
- How do you design a new text set?
- How do multimodal texts help young people to access content?

Selecting Children’s Literature for Text Sets

- With so many books being published today, how do you find and locate books that might be useful for your content standards and curriculum needs?
- How do you match texts, content, and the students you’re working with?
- How can you diversify the texts you are using in your content area curriculum?

Nonfiction Literature

- What is the “new” nonfiction?
- How can you incorporate more of it into your curriculum and your classroom library?
- What are some ways to find and locate new nonfiction books?
- How do you support students in navigating the different forms and formats that nonfiction books now take?
- How do nonfiction books serve as mentor texts? How can the research and creative methods used by nonfiction authors and illustrators serve as mentor processes?

Building an Inclusive Classroom Library

- How do you select texts that represent a range of cultural backgrounds and life experiences?
- How do you consider the needs and interests of the students in your classroom when selecting texts for independent reading and literature circles?

Teaching Writing with Text Sets

- How can we expand the range of text products that students produce?
- How do you read a text closely to determine its potential for writing minilessons?
- How do you use a range of print and multimodal texts as models for student writing?
- How can multimodal multgenre writing serve as a demonstration of student learning?

Building Disciplinary Literacies Through Text Sets

- How do you identify texts that model the literacies of science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts?
- How do you conduct minilessons that support students to see disciplinary literacies at work in texts and across text sets?
- How do you combine texts and experiential learning to support learning in the disciplines of science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts?

Supporting English Language Learners with Text Sets

- How do you select texts to support vocabulary learning, to scaffold content learning, and to differentiate for emerging bilingual learners?
- How do you combine texts and experiential learning to support learning in the disciplines of science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts?
- How can text sets serve as models for multimodal multigenre writing for emerging bilingual learners?

Topics

Formats

Presentations (In Person or Virtual Via Zoom)

Our presentations are interactive. Full day and half day sessions include small group work and conversations.

Full Day(s)
Half Day
After School

Book Clubs (Virtual Via Zoom)

In our virtual book club, we meet with you and your colleagues to discuss one of our books. Come to us with your thoughts and questions. We’ll work with you to determine a schedule that is right for your school.

Collaborative Curriculum Review (Asynchronous Virtual)

Hours and timing determined to fit your needs. Once you’ve had us speak to your group (in-person or via Zoom), we’re happy to do follow-up work with your team, school, or district providing feedback on text sets that you’re designing and/or reviewing your implementation plan. This can happen once or it can be built in across the school year.

Keynote Talks (In-Person or Virtual)

We’re happy to speak at your annual meeting or conference on the range of topics included above.

Don’t see what you are looking for? Contact us and we’re happy to brainstorm ways that we can support you. Rates will vary depending on whether you want one or both of us to participate, and your geographical location.