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Two teachers can hand out the same argument template on the same day and produce two different lessons. In one classroom, the template puts the grounds behind a claim in front of the class so the claim can be examined and revised. In the other, it becomes a worksheet to fill in and turn in for points. The tool did not change. The teaching did. We have spent two decades building materials that give students something to argue about. Curricula, instructional models, graphic org

A curriculum director asked me this on a call last spring, and she was not asking out of curiosity. She had a procurement form in front of her with two boxes on it, and the box she checked determined which budget the purchase came out of and which review process it went through. I will give her the direct answer, because I think a straight one is more useful than a careful one. Today, our books are investigation books. We built them that way on purpose. Each one is a set of c

A department chair sent me this in September, which is exactly when it tends to arrive. A school picks a focus, the focus is a good one, and then someone has to figure out how to put a number next to it by the end of the semester. Before the measurement, a minute on the thing being measured, because sensemaking is one of those words that gets adopted much faster than it gets defined, and a department that has not defined it will end up with a rubric that quietly measures part