Mrs. Handlin says: "It took years for me to finally arrange the room this way ... I arrange the tables with their ends facing towards the front so that no one will have their back to the front of the room ... Occasionally I want them to pay attention to what I am doing in the front or what some person is doing in the front -- they give a lot of presentations and they read and share their stuff."

"I have the throughlines for the year posted in the front of the room from the first day of the school year until the last. Students use the questions throughout the year in exams, papers and projects"

"I like having the tables because the kids do a lot of talking together and they do a lot of projects ... Art project that go with the writing they do ... and so they need room for gluing, pasting, and coloring stuff and the small desks aren't good for that..."

When I say "assume audience position" I want them to turn their chairs and face the front of the room.	They don't like to turn their chairs, but if they only turn their bodies like this,	they end up turning back around during the presentation and face each other.

I usually run around for part of the class ... I don't think any human being can listen really well for 45 minutes ...

"Most of my walls aren't very exciting ... Usually I put tracking posters up ... So that students can see what they have finished and what they still need to do. It creates a little competition and they work to get a check on their name to show that they are finished with assignments."

Pictures of Practice Contents Introduction The Colonial Biography Unit (7th Grade History) A Year of Seventh Grade English A Year of Eighth Grade Science The Jazz Unit Snapshot Using the CCDT to Develop Generative Topics