Consulting

Our Approach

We design instruction that engages 100% of students with the reading and writing movements that top performers nationally have internalized. We want to give intellectual access to all learners. Our instruction is anchored in brain research and tested with real students. We have over forty years of classroom experience. Our students aren’t passive and we don’t waste their time with grand pontifications.

Consulting Services

Workshops Designed For Your Faculty

Faculty development hours are more effective when shaped around department content and student audience. 

Mentorship For Teachers

We’ll coach individual teachers to create instruction focused on student success.

Vertical Alignment Enhances Successful Student Outcomes

Let us help your humanities department build a system of shared plays.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can your strategies help my students avoid plot summary?

Once you teach students what the “L2 Play” means, they can quickly discern between plot and an interpretive idea.  When giving feedback to students who are merely re-telling the details of the story, you’ll just say, “I haven’t heard any L2–increase the quantity.”

Since all levels of students can learn the basic L1 and L2 plays, a classroom of mixed ability with each play works well.  Arranging groups with a student just learning the L1 play with a more advanced student can be of benefit to both–the weaker seeing a more skilled execution of the play and the stronger being forced to explain why the play is successful builds both sets of memory networks. 

The effectiveness of the “Plays” is their simplicity and clarity.  They turn what seems for some a mysterious power of interpretation into an intellectual movement that is concrete and observable. 

Yes– the interpretive strategies work with all texts – no need to change a system when approaching a poem or a cartoon or a nonfiction text.

Our primary graphic organizer the Evidence-Association Chart visualizes for students the basic movements of reading and provides the data for piecing together sentences, paragraphs, and whole essays.  The Paragraph Chart focuses more precisely on four concrete plays that develop unity and coherence inside the paragraph.   Our math/science students particular enjoy the structured data collection and alignment the organizers provide. 

Clarity. Model. Repetition. Feedback

  1. Isolate 2-3 “Plays” that are important for your students’ success; make sure that the procedure for implementing the play is clear.
  2. Provide a model for students to imitate.
  3. Create single lessons to practice a “Play” and provide immediate feedback as students attempt to execute it.

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