Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  ‘What is an assignment?’ seems like a simple question, until it is discussed.  In this episode Jacob and Pam dive into the ‘What is an assignment?’ question.  Pam begins by trying to answer the question and soon realizes that the answer is complicated due to the complexity found in education.  Jacob does a quick search to get a more formal answer. Jacob shares how teachers assign work in variou ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  In this episode, Jacob and Pam take a quiz straight from Education Weekly.  The quiz asks questions from teacher salary, to teacher PD preferences.   The quiz prompts Jacob and Pam to discuss each scenario or topic that is relevant to teachers today.  Their conversation includes whether or not they agree with each other as well as other aspects of the educational profession. Join Jacob and ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  Jacob just took some students to visit a few colleges and universities.  The visit propagated the question, “Are schools effectively readying their students for college?” In this episode, Jacob and Pam talk about why college readiness is still important.  They each share their own college experiences.  They both realize that the experiences are completely opposite from each other.  Pam sha ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  Every year in the education world, educators are trying to figure out if they should stay at their school or district or leave. Jacob and Pam discuss the question, “When do you know whether you should stay, look for another place, or quit?”   In this episode, Pam shares how she made decisions to move to other schools and districts throughout her career.  She explains how sometimes she moved for ..read more

In this bonus episode for our Craft and Draft patrons we answer Courtney’s question regarding the test taking season. Jacob shares how he begins broad in his workshop and then narrows his scope as his students approach the test.  This approach allows him to create a workshop atmosphere full of exploration, discovery and creativity. Pam shares how she focuses the students toward the standard and helps them ‘work’ the test.  She uses the ‘Think Aloud’ strategy form Laura Robb to model how to read test questions. Join Jacob and Pam as they share these techniques and other test prep idea ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  It seems that the notion, ‘Students can’t read’ is always at the forefront of public conversations these days.  So much so writing instruction seems to have taken a back seat in the classroom.  In this episode, Jacob and Pam talk about how writing is the flipside of the literacy coin.  You can not have one without the other.  They both make an argument that student centered sponsored writi ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  Reading workshop is designed to help students to create their reading loves and sponsor a love for reading; however, the other side (so to speak) says that this philosophy is not helping students be better readers. So the question remains, “Should teachers teach a love for reading?” In this episode, Jacob and Pam meander through the topic of teaching a love for reading.  Jacob shares how it seems with th ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching.  It has been a busy year and the time of essay writing is upon everyone.  Educators in all situations are feeling the pressure to get their students up to par composing essays. In this episode, Pam discusses how she goes about teaching the essay.  She shares some of the resources that she has used to get her up to speed in years past.  Pam explains why workshop teachers must allow the students t ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. This episode was previously published as a BONUS for Patreon. If you want more episodes like this, or if you just want to support the show, click here.  Jacob and Pam want to begin by thanking you for your support! In this bonus episode Jacob and Pam explain why they use two notebooks, a Craft Book and a Draft Book. Pam begins by sharing a workshop experience where she had to reset and restart the workshop. Sh ..read more

Welcome everyone to the Craft & Draft podcast! We are so excited to bring you what we love, talking with you about workshop, literacy, writing, reading, and real world teaching. This episode was previously published as a BONUS for Patreon. If you want more episodes like this, or if you just want to support the show, click here.  School does stress us out; however, school is a place we love!  In this bonus episode, Jacob and Pam share how much they are feeling the pressure and stress of deadlines, paperwork, behavior issues, and the strive for success. Jacob shares how much he enj ..read more