Shira Katz has twenty years of experience teaching and learning in the New York city public schools and
beyond. Before becoming a literacy coach and social studies staff developer, she taught Humanities to
middle and high school students with a broad range of abilities in District Two. Since then, Shira has
been immersed in the work of moving teachers forward in their craft through active classroom coaching
and modeling, thought-partnering and strategizing with school leaders, planning and facilitating
professional development experiences and supporting teacher leaders and teams.
Most recently she has been focusing her work on integrating the CCLS into Social Studies classrooms
through developing multiple opportunities for deeper reading, writing and discussion—as well as
helping teachers create content units organized around argumentative reading and writing tasks. In
addition, Shira helped design and facilitate lab site sessions on content area literacy for CFN 103 in NYC.
Her deep belief in the power of teacher collaboration informs her practice: Shira supports teacher teams
in learning from one another through examining student work, utilizing Critical Friend’s protocols and
co-planning.
Inspired by the possibilities of the classroom and the resilience of young people, Shira has provided
support, skills and resources to hundreds of educators, as well as created professional development
experiences on an array of topics including: Developing School-Wide HOM aligned with College and
Career Readiness, Unpacking the CCLS, Reading and Writing Workshop, Developing Argumentative
Reading and Writing Tasks, Inquiry in the Social Studies Classroom, Backwards Planning (UBD), Reading
and Writing in the Content Areas, Accountable Talk, Formative Assessment Strategies, and Strategies
for Differentiation. Shira brings her passion for team building and collaboration to all her work, leaving
teachers with both deeper theoretical understanding and practical applications of the topic at hand.
