About
Welcome to Literacy Teacher – a Blog that offers resources for elementary and middle school literacy teachers.
My name is Maddie Witter, formerly Maddie (or Madeleine) Tippens. I’m the Director of Instruction at KIPP Infinity Charter School, and I’ve created a blog to share great reading and writing resources that I come across in my own teaching.
While I went to public school K-12, I never imagined I would be so immersed in public education. It wasn’t until I became a teacher’s aid in Central California to make ends meet that my interest was sparked. I later became a para professional while attending NYU, and I primarily did guided reading in a 4th grade classroom in the Lower East Side. After graduating, I went on dozens of interviews, but the door was shut in my face because I wasn’t certified. That’s when I joined the New York corps of Teach for America in 2002.
I began as an 8th grade Special Education teacher in Washington Heights, and later moved onto 6th grade ELL. After completing my commitment, I became a literacy coach in the same building. Since, I’ve taught both reading and writing to grades 5 through 8. Currently, I am the Director of Instruction of KIPP Infinity Charter School, a school I co-founded in 2005, and I continue to teach reading and writing to 8th graders.
If you’d like to contact me regarding reading and writing or professional speaking, please e-mail me at madeleine.tippens@gmail.com.
Leave a response and help improve reader response. All your responses matter, so say whatever you want. But please refrain from spamming and shameless plugs, as well as excessive use of vulgar language.
Maddie,
I just wanted to drop a quick thank you off to you. I sit in Starbucks every Saturday morning before school reading your blog and I realized you deserve a big thank you! If you were here, I’d buy your latte J I read your blog diligently, and although I haven’t had a chance to visit Infinity (as of yet…) I love your school! I just want you to know that I am very appreciative of all the time you spend faithfully updating your blog. I know that you probably don’t see the fruit of your labor in that area, but out here in CA, I consider it one of my top resources. Although we are full grown, we are a small KIPP school and will never have the funding for a literacy specialist, so I am fully taking advantage of all the work you are doing at your school. I just wanted to thank you and let you know that your impact reaches beyond NYC; the KIPPsters here in Fresno are benefiting so much from your willingness to share your wealth of knowledge. Thank you!!
Tina Brennan
6th Grade Reading & Writing
KIPP Academy Fresno
Tina,
Thank you soooo much for your sweet notes! I’ve been up to my ears in theater rehearsals as of late (we are putting on Anne Frank next week), but I plan to share more things. Donna Santman came and literally rocked my world. All I can say is, do everything in partner books… more to come later when the website doesn’t shut down every time I try to update something!
Thanks again- hopefully I’ll see you at Summit
Maddie
I totally echo Tina- this is the best resource out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much for doing this. WOW.
Thanks!
Helen Cosner
KIPP Journey Academy
Ms. Witter,
Thank you SO much for all the work you put into this blog and the work you do at Infinity! I was absolutely blown away when I visited your class last spring…you are a phenomenal teacher. (I was even lucky enough to see the kids perform “A Raisin in the Sun”). Although I’m still in college, this blog is so helpful to me because I tutor 3 extremely low 9th graders in reading and writing. I hope I get the chance to visit Infinity again some time!
Catharine B.
Washington, DC
Read three entries, thought “This must be another KIPPster,” clicked About, and hey, it’s the Head KIPPster of reading teachers! (: Thank you so much for doing this.
Hi Maddie,
What strategies or templates do you use when teaching kids how to take notes before meeting in a book club?
I have all these specific things I want to teach my 7th graders to look for as they’re reading, but I don’t have a good note-taking system for them to keep track of it all.
Thanks!
-Emily LeVasseur
KIPP Aspire Academy
Hi Emily,
I would recommmend a composition notebook. Its already set up in a three column format. For the left of the red line, I would put the symbol for thinking. In the large column in the middle would be their thinking and the right column is the page number. I would recommend collecting it once a week and letting the kids know what their daily expectations are in terms of how many entries, what type of entries, etc.
Maddie