Quote Collections are one-page pdf downloads of quotes around a literacy or professional development theme. Provocative, funny, thoughtful - each page has a range of quotes to spark discussion, focus inquiry, or foster reflection. These quotes might be used in study groups, or shared between mentors and colleagues, or highlighted as a "Quote of the Month" in newsletters.

To open any of these materials, you will need a copy of Acrobat Reader on your computer. Get a free copy of Acrobat Reader by clicking here.

Click on any link below to download the quote collection of your choice.

Content Literacy

Mentoring

Commitment to Teaching

Solving Problems

Punctuation

Leadership and Change

On Writing

Time Quote Collection We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. Paul Bowles . . . more Change Quote Collection If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. Kurt Lewin . . . more Discussion Quote Collection As a leader . . . I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion. Oftentimes, my own opinion will simply represent a consensus of what I heard in the discussion. I always remember the axiom: a leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. Nelson Mandela . . . more Reading Comprehension - Yesterday and Today Quote Collection The problem is that when we tell kids they have to seek connections as readers, we're teaching them to stop engaging in stories and start looking for distractions. And no one can be engaged and distracted at the same time. Nancie Atwell . . . more Evaluation Quotes There is a comedian on television who jokes about putting together a difficult, five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle: It was all sky! Too much talk about standards, and not enough of the kind of professional development that makes change at the classroom level is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle of the sky. It takes an impossible amount of time and it doesn't add up to much. Shelley Harwayne . . . more Writers on Revision (Quote Collection) If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, "Make it shine. It's worth it." Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief! Naomi Shihab Nye . . . more Solving Problems When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. Abraham Maslow Each problem that I solved became a rule which served . . . more Punctuation Quotes In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy and the semicolon quietly practices the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit br . . . more Favorite Mentoring Quotes When you get conflicting reactions, block your impulse to figure out which reactions are right. Eat like an owl: take in everything and trust your innards to digest what's useful and discard what's not. Peter Elbow . . . more Quotes about Commitment to Teaching To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin. . . . more Poets on Notebooks Quote Collection Notebooks are like attics, a place for treasures which sometimes turn out to be junk, but take you anyway to another time and place. Cynthia MacDonald . . . more Quotes about Content Literacy for Adolescents Unfortunately, the idea of harder textbooks has captured the attention of educators and policymakers interested in raising academic achievement. But harder books won't foster the growth of content learning. Think about your own attempts to acquire new content knowledge. Imagine you want to learn about building a website. Do you reject the books you might use because they are too easy? Do you say to yourself, "Gosh, only 11 words on this page that I can't pronounce--not hard enough for me!" Richard Allington . . . more Solving Problems Quote Collection The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" ("I found it!") but rather "Hmm....that's funny..." Isaac Asimov . . . more