Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

02.19.15 Elephants and Outsiders: Watch Colleen Driggs Embed Non-Fiction (Video)

I’ve posted a few times recently about a really productive way to get more non-fiction into your classroom and get MUCH more out if it when it’s there.  The idea is called “embedding non-fiction”…  pairing non-fiction articles with fiction texts you are reading. Each text becomes a lens on the other and increases the rate at…


01.11.15 Maggie Johnson: How Derek Pollak Excavates Error (Video)

With Teach Like a Champion 2.0 lining the shelves of a book store near you, we’re back at the tiller at TLaC Towers, studying and learning from teachers.  Recently we watched a lesson of Derek Pollak’s at North Star High School and were pretty inspired.  We liked this clip in particular and Maggie Johnson volunteered to…


01.07.15 Erica Woolway: Handling the Student Who Has to Leave the Group (video)

My colleague and co-author Erica Woolway and I spend a lot of time watching video of great teaching with our team. Often times the things that excite us most are the things that are the most mundane- a teacher mastering some small challenge that all teachers struggle with, with deftness and skill. So useful! That’s just…