Teachers everywhere are guilty of assigning an unknown text to students and asking them to identify the theme, without any class discussion or activities. We often live and die by our worksheets that we’ve used for the past ten years; however, our students deserve something better. Our students deserve the chance to discuss, respond, read, talk, listen, and think in low risk environments about a text prior to having to write about it. Come join us and learn how to use the teaching progression continuum to craft learning experiences for your students that flow from oral response and discussion all the way to the extended constructed responses.