The Lexicon of Mystery: Reading Work Made Visible

Sometimes, a theme can feel almost contagious in a school as small as ours, drifting from one discipline to another. While learners puzzled over mystery tubes in Science Block, Violet Band readers began their work as detectives across the hall in Literacy, exploring mystery as a literary genre.

The intellectual work of reading mystery is both complex and irresistible. Violet Band’s unit encouraged readers to start by identifying the “crime-solver” and the nature of the mystery itself – a task that’s often less than obvious in the exposition phase of a mystery novel, when a generalized atmosphere of weirdness may appear before an actual conflict emerges. Once an inciting action occurs, the reader begins to act as a detective herself, paying attention to details that might be clues…

literacyLisa ZapalacNovember 11, 2022Long-View Micro Schoolreading, writing, mystery, thinking, strategies

Two Hundred Years of Pedagogical Thinking: Amber Band Explores Theories of Education

Where does the Long-View model come from, in terms of its theoretical orientation? How does it compare to other educational experiences? Since Winter Break, Amber Band – generally, this year’s oldest group of Long-View learners – has considered these questions and more as a part of a sustained inquiry into pedagogical models in Literacy Block. Dr. Flider, who leads Amber Band in Literacy, described the goals of the unit, saying “the idea here is to really give the learners an intimate sense of the educational project that is Long-View and the way that it truly is informed by two hundred years of pedagogical thinking. I also want them to be more informed "consumers of education" as they move into high school and college.”

In service of these goals, learners have listened to their teachers describe their own formative experiences in the “Educators on Education” interview series; read theories of education by writers from Bronson Alcott to Paulo Freire; debated each other over best practices; and conducted their own research into areas of interest in this field.

Today’s post features the research writing of Amber Band learner Makhai Lee: “Education in the Juvenile Justice System.” We’ll examine several excerpts from Makhai’s essay (full text here)….

literacyLisa ZapalacApril 11, 2022Long-View Micro Schoolwriting, education theory, amber band

When Reading Level and Maturity Level Don’t Align: How We Think About Our Young, Advanced Readers

Let’s say you’re in fifth grade. You’ve already read all the Harry Potter books three times (okay, you’ve read the first one seven times). You know the entire Percy Jackson series by heart. Your start-of-year reading assessment vaulted you comfortably from level Z to level Z+ on the Fountas and Pinnell reading scale, so you’re now clocking in at a high school reading level, and you keep hearing that you need to read more advanced books. Your older sister (who’s also a Z+ reader) and all her friends are raving about a new young-adult masterpiece that’s won all kinds of awards, but the characters are juniors in high school and they do stuff at a party in the very first chapter that makes you want to drop the book and go straight back to Harry Potter. Where do you turn?

This is a challenge we encounter all the time. At Long-View, 78% of our learners are reading at the Z+ level; this indicates a high school level in terms of both literal and inferential comprehension….

Curating a Diverse Library for Our Learners

Here at Long-View, the members of the Literacy team tend to moonlight as librarians. Whether during the school year on Thursday afternoons, early in the morning, or during the summer months, we are constantly expanding, curating, organizing, and pondering the Long-View library collection. In recent years, Long-View has particularly committed itself to enriching the diversity of the books we offer our learners. While the push for more diverse books—especially for children and teenagers—has become a major initiative across the education and publishing worlds in the United States only relatively recently, it’s much more than a fashionable trend. And it’s much more than an empty gesture towards inclusivity….

Individualized Lists: How Summer Reading Works at Long-View

Long-View teachers value the progress in reading that can occur during summer months, and with that they spend significant time doing something that rarely happens at other schools: crafting individualized reading lists for each child. Rather than give everyone at a grade level the same list of required reading, our teachers work to build individualized lists for each reader. Today the first step of this process began when blank lists for every child were posted on the windows across the school. Every day for the next two weeks, all teachers will work to build out the lists, which will then be taken home by the kids on the last day of school….

How to Extend Learning at the Texas Book Festival (Oct. 27th and 28th)

At Long-View, learners are encouraged to extend their learning beyond the boundaries of the school day—to see their learning as a constant process and embrace it as their own responsibility. This month, all of us in the Long-View community have a special opportunity to do just that, and it’s right down the street: the Texas Book Festival….

literacyLisa ZapalacOctober 16, 2018Long-View Micro Schoolbook festival, Texas Book Festival, authors

Living a Reading and Writing Life

At Long-View, learners are daily entangled in words, obsessed with writing, and bewitched by books. During literacy block, learners across age and experience grow to feel and understand that writing and reading are essential to who we are as individuals and as a learning community. We are not just people who do the acts of reading and writing; we are readers and writers. Literacy block is serious work, but it is seriously fun.

What do we mean by the reading life and the writing life?

We fundamentally believe that reading and writing are inextricably linked to who we are…

literacyLisa ZapalacSeptember 18, 2018Long-View Micro Schoolreading life, writing life

Bringing History to Life

“Give me liberty or give me death,” read a large poster hanging on the door of our literacy classroom early this January. We were kicking off an intense study of information texts through an in depth study of the American Revolution. With this rich history content as our kindling, learners dove into reading, writing, and becoming historians like never before....

Poetry Slam Creates Opportunity For Growth

Slam! Jaws dropped to the floor as Long-View poets took the mic, spouting repetitions, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. Delivering wisdom on topics ranging from anger to siblings to politics, Grey Band poets stunned the audience and judges of Long-View’s first poetry slam with their deep reflections, carefully-selected words, and well-honed performances. The slam took place this week at Caffe Medici’s performance space, and the inaugural event was a great success....

literacyLisa ZapalacFebruary 7, 2018Long-View Micro Schoolwriting, poetry, poetry slam, communication, performance

Starting the Year Off Strong in Literacy Block

Reading and writing units at Long-View are often intertwined, supporting learners as they develop deep understanding of a particular genre across both domains. For the first two months of the year, learners in Red and Turquoise Bands have working on stretching their understanding of the genre of realistic fiction.

Called “Interpreting Characters,” the reading unit was focused heavily on understanding the central part of a story, the characters. Learners developed ways of thinking about characters and story in order to theorize about their readings…