I have a special place in my heart for my gifted learners. Here are lessons I specifically designed to challenge those wonderful kids.

As a kid, I attended a school district that didn't really have a gifted and talented program. I can't say for sure whether I would have been placed in GT as a child if they'd offered one, since I was a little bit lazy and pretty unorganized, but if you know GT kids like I do, you know these are common traits you see in these students. So...I suspect I might have been a little GT. Maybe...

Whether gifted or not, I know for a fact I was often bored in school as a student because tasks often seemed easy and repetitive. As a teacher now, I go out of my way to make my elements of my lessons and projects unexpected and "un-boring." When I plan the "un-boring" parts, I often visualize one of my GT learners as my audience and ask, "What would keep this kid interested in this topic/task?" and "What independent challenges might I offer beyond this lesson that would stimulate further interest from in this learner?"

I have become pretty skilled at spotting differentiated instruction techniques in other classrooms, and I know how easy it is to design a lesson that--let's be honest here--aims its best ideas at helping one's average kids learn the material; this "teaching-to-the-middle" type of lesson is often too hard for one's struggling learners and too simple for the advanced learners, and a teacher who hasn't pre-planned for the extra pieces for the above-average learners and the strugglers isn't differentiating. In my teacher workshops on differentiating instruction, I demonstrate how I tier or scaffold my lessons so that students who need extra support have that piece already planned and ready to go, and so that students who appreciate an extra challenge have that available to them as well.

All of my students maintain a writer's notebook, and on this developing page you will find some of my new notebook challenges specifically designed as my GT challenges. I'm not going to assign these lessons; I am simply going to tell my gifted kids they are on-line at my website, and I'm going to "dare" them to find them and earn special recognition by completing them.

If you like the lessons I have posted, or you've created an interesting adaptation, I hope you'll let me know: corbett@corbettharrison.com At each lesson listed below, there is also a link at the bottom of each lesson where you can post digital photographs of completed writer's notebook pages inspired by the ideas I've shared here. Please share back with me.

I hear I might have a lot of GT kids this upcoming September. I'm spending my August creating the first three of nine monthly writer's notebook/workshop challenges that I'll "dare" my gifted kids to a) find here on my website and b) earn amazing respect from me if they create a page for their notebooks based on the idea I share. During upcoming writer's workshop blocks, these notebook pages will become a great starting point for my students who are choosing a new idea to take through the writing process.

By May, I expect to have nine of these challenges posted, and I plan to photograph and share my students' best work with each lesson below. Please keep checking back with me

I think the most important thing to give a GT learner with a writing challenge of any type is a model; each lesson below comes with a model notebook page from my own writer's notebook. I am convinced that if more teachers created and shared their models of the writing process, they would see a noticeable change in their classroom's atmosphere during writing time. They would also be able to speak about the writing process with more accuracy and depth. When we assign writing to students and they never see us write too, we have missed an opportunity to truly celebrate the writing.

All of my models in the following lessons, as you'll see, are heavily dependent on illustrations. Since I am an incompetent artist, you'll see how I have made good use of my classroom's "margin mascot," Mr. Stick.