Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

12.07.25 Ask Doug: On Graphic Organizers

  Doug recently got a note from a teacher in Texas who had read our recent book, The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, and was especially interested in making social studies classes more writing intensive. This teacher was curious that we don’t show many graphic organizers in the book, unless blank…


12.07.12 Rainforests, Euthanasia and Embedding Non-fiction

Those of you who have been to our reading workshops are up-to-date on “Embedded Non-fiction”—the idea of teaching non-fiction by combining it with a novel.  Rather than reading de-contextualized articles to practice reading non-fiction—the Civil War today; the naked mole rat tomorrow—you’d choose topics that develop and add depth to topics raised by the novel you’re…