From the Desk of Tiffanee Brown

Seattle, United States

Dear Fellow Literacy or World Language Educator,

Do you feel that you’re the best literacy teacher you can be?

I know that’s a big question, but you have such an important opportunity to make an impact, to help your students deeply understand literacy, share their ideas, and engage as members of our global community. 

Are you maximizing your students' potential as thinkers, creators, and communicators in your elementary or secondary school classroom?

By teaching literacy or world languages in a way that leverages your students' thinking and meaning-making, you have an opportunity to design lessons that move beyond skills to develop transferable conceptual understanding.

How would you like to hear your students saying things like this:

This is Concept-Based Literacy in action.

Teachers from around the world have been asking for a way to learn to use Concept-Based Literacy, without having to take valuable time away from the classroom or traveling to my international workshops. And in response, I’ve created an interactive six-week online course with self-paced modules and live coaching sessions that fully prepares you to teach through a Concept-Based Literacy approach!

I’m very excited to invite you to join me virtually for the online course Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons. 

About seven years into teaching literacy, I honestly didn’t feel that I was the best educator I could be. 

I was putting a lot of heart and planning into every lesson, I’d earned a masters and numerous endorsements, and my students were consistently scoring well above the average on our standardized writing assessment. 

But somehow, I still felt that something was missing. I worried that I wasn’t teaching to my students’ learning potential, or guiding them to really access the true power of literacy.

I began to research and experiment with different approaches, and that’s when I discovered the Concept-Based work of Dr. Lynn Erickson and Dr. Lois Lanning.

Despite the fact that it was midyear, I decided to design and implement my first Concept-Based literacy unit. And even though that first attempt was far from perfect, the outcome was unbelievable. 

The quotes I shared above are exactly what my students told me at the end of the year. They also said:

And I even got this:

What teacher doesn’t want to hear that? 

I was seeing the power of conceptual teaching firsthand, and from that moment in time, I’ve never looked back.

That was only the beginning...

After implementing the Concept-Based approach in my classroom, I became passionate about helping other teachers learn to use it, too. 

I went on to co-author Concept-Based Literacy Lessons: Designing Learning to Ignite Understanding and Transfer with Dr. Lanning herself, and I began leading international workshops for literacy and world language teachers from all over the world.

When I started to explore this area, I found that many literacy resources do not actually show you how to design lessons to systematically support the conceptual understanding and learning transfer. 

The how-to remains a mystery, or left up to you to try to figure out on your own — and this can be a very time consuming and frustrating process.

That’s why my passion is to help educators like you turn Concept-Based Literacy theory into actionable practice through time-saving tips, resources, examples, and shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration.

You will complete this course ready to bring Concept-Based Literacy to life in your classroom.

Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons will take place virtually over a period of six weeks starting April 12th, 2021.

Each week, you will gain access to a new video module and supporting resources. This coursework will take you about two hours per week to complete.

Then, we’ll meet for a weekly, hour-long group coaching call, where we’ll answer questions and provide you with an opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues.

To accommodate everyone, we’ll schedule these Zoom calls in two time zones, and we’ll record the calls for anyone who can’t attend. These discussions are such valuable opportunities for dialogue, and I want to make sure that they are available to everyone.

After week six, we’ll schedule an individual coaching session. During this time, you'll get specific feedback on your lesson plan — and get it ready to go for your classroom!

Here is what’s included in each module.

This first module will ground you in some of the key differences between two-dimensional skill-based and three-dimensional Concept-Based Literacy. We’ll discuss...

This module sets the context for your lesson planning. You will learn where concepts are drawn from in literacy,  how to use a process web to organize the lesson, and write conceptual understandings that support the development of skills and strategies. We’ll explore questions like...

You will start to develop a lesson plan, using a specially designed Concept-Based Literacy Lesson Planning Flow Chart. The focus for this week will be on identifying what your students will need to know, understand, and be able to do at the end of your lesson. You will also write guiding questions that support your students' thinking. To make sure that you are on the right path, you’ll have a chance to review how model lesson plans are put together. We will consider...

As a learning aid for this course, all participants will also receive a digital copy of the Concept-Based Literacy book that I co-authored with Dr. Lois Lanning, Concept-Based Literacy Lessons: Designing Learning to Ignite Understanding and Transfer (Lanning and Brown, Corwin, 2019). 

We will draw on resources from this book throughout the course, using some of the model lesson plans, model units, and classroom snapshots as tools for reflection and inspiration for the lessons that you will design. The examples and resources in this book will continue to serve as a valuable reference as you design future Concept-Based Literacy lessons for your classroom.

When you sign up for Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons, you’ll be covered by our 14-day 100% money-back guarantee. 

This means that if you decide, in the first two weeks, that the course isn’t delivering on the value you expected, you can get a full refund. No questions asked.

I have no problem offering this because like I said, I’ve worked so hard to pack this course with valuable material and practical guidance that will prepare you to immediately bring Concept-Based Literacy into your classroom. 

I am confident that it will be transformative for your teaching and your students’ learning. But you can decide for yourself, and it’s risk-free.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably pretty interested in Concept-Based Literacy and what this course will do for your teaching. 

But just in case, let me be up front and tell you whom this course may not resonate with. My Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons course is not for educators who:

But if you believe student choice and personal relevance are critical to developing lifelong love of literacy, and you are ready to increase student thinking by guiding students to take the lead in meaning-making... then you will get so much out of this course.

When you enroll in Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons, here’s what you’ll be getting:

If you are ready to make literacy learning more dynamic and holistic, leverage student agency and meaning-making, and guide your students to develop transferable conceptual understanding that they will value for years to come… let’s do this together.

Click below to register for the Designing Concept-Based Literacy Lessons course. I’m so excited to share this with you, work with you, and support you along the way.

Warm Regards,

Tiffanee Brown

One more thing! If the date of this course does not fit with your schedule, please email admin@prolearnint.com to register your interest for future offerings. We will be in touch when we have that on the calendar.