Step Aside: Strategies for Student-Driven Learning with Secondary Readers and Writers

by Sarah M. Zerwin

All students can drive their own learning when we show them how. Humanized, equitable classrooms start with a commitment to building student agency. Step Aside offers clear, streamlined guidance for launching secondary students into high-level work that hinges on their ideas and insights.

Sarah writes from the complex and challenging space of daily life in a classroom. She knows student-driven learning does not mean students make all decisions about what happens in the classroom. It occupies a more nuanced space where teachers carefully curate the classroom experience and teach students how to navigate it on their own.

Sarah has done the work to weave many resources into a Three Step Meaning Making Process that grows students’ thinking. Each chapter offers effective, flexible strategies to put into practice

● Reading strategies that work for any text students need or want to read.

● Writing strategies that work for any text students need or want to write.

● Discussion strategies that students can use to talk things out with others, no matter the subject.

● Assessment strategies that show students how to set goals, track their progress, and learn anything they want to learn in their life, in or out of school.

Especially when we notice our students are struggling, Step Aside reminds us we need to hold ourselves accountable for keeping out of the way of the most important work. Our students must read and write and think and discuss—on their own—to navigate the complexity of their lives.

181 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 9, 2024

Reviews

[Kenzie]

Zerwin always leaves me feeling inspired and grateful to be a teacher.

[Sarah Krajewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cris Tovani’s forward reminds us teachers that many students aren’t invested in their own learning. Zerwin’s Step Aside aims to change this. We must make students the center of our classrooms, and guide them toward independence. Make students a part of planning. Talk to them. We teachers must know what students are thinking and noticing before all else. Zerwin teaches helpful, scaffolded strategies to ease teachers into learning techniques that honor student agency. From reading, to writing, to grading, to classroom routines, it’s all here! An important read for those that want to make their classrooms more “student-driven.”

5 stars to the content in this book! I believe it all and have seen the benefits in my own classroom. My only reason for 4 stars is that I’m already there for a lot of this. I love the OTAs, rambling thoughts, and the three-step meaning making progress, but I learned a lot of the other techniques and tips back when I read Point-Less.

[Liz Campbell Vidreiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am always inspired by Sarah Zerwin! I'm so grateful for this book because I've been trying to "step aside" my whole teaching career and have found success in some areas but floundered in others. After reading this book, I have so many fresh ideas to fully step aside and allow my students to drive all aspects of what we'll be doing in my English classes.

[Allyssa Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic ideas of how to enable students to take more ownership and responsibility over their learning and progress.