Continuing to write when the rest of the world felt like it’s on fire helped me to feel a little more like me. It helped me to keep some normalcy. And it helped me to reflect on what it means to be a teacher writer these days.
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Smokey Bear Persuasion and Wildfire Prevention Messaging
Recently, my student Daphne described taking a hike last month, as the Bobcat Fire burned 50 miles away within the Angeles National Forest. As she made her way down the hiking trail, she encountered a small lizard covered in ash, demonstrating just how far the smoke and ash had traveled. One of the largest fires […]
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Welcoming Reflection
For many teachers, this fall has been a time of mourning. We mourn for the teaching strategies we can’t use right now, for the trickles of conversation before and after class that we used to enjoy with our students, for our feelings of self-efficacy in our chosen profession. Most of us are facing challenges that […]
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Talking to Teachers: “Writing Beside Them” and the Power of Revision
In this edition of T2T, I am speaking with yet another recent colleague from the American Community School of Abu Dhabi (see my previous post where I talked to Matt Foss an IB Language and Literature teacher). Jordan Moog is a grade 9 Global Studies and AP US History teacher and you will gain a […]
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Diagnostic Writing: The Springboard for Relearning, Reflecting, and Revising
Earlier this month, the Moving Writers Team collaborated on a post titled “12 Writing Experiences for Processing the Election.” Within the post, I shared an idea where writers use the following prompt to build an argument surrounding the concept of compulsory voting. With my beat this school year being about revision, I saw this post […]
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What Comes After Mentor Texts? Defining Each Writer’s Signature Style
My 8th graders are just starting to embark upon their high school application journey. In terms of writing, this means short answer application questions and longer essays in admissions tests. You know the kind. The kind that lure students into giving vague, voiceless answers to questions like, “What inspires you about school?” and “Give three […]
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12 Writing Experiences for Processing the Election
If our feelings as we approach the election are complicated and anxiety-ridden, then certainly our thoughts and feelings will be equally so in the days and weeks that follow this particular election. If this is true for us, it’s certainly true for our students. The team has been working this week (at Hattie’s inspiration!) to […]
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Nature Poetry and Survival Instincts: Floating with the Vampire Squid
2020 has provided unique challenges to the effort to close the “Nature Gap”: minimal time spent enjoying outdoor play and increased time spent in front of screens has led to greater nature disconnection. One way I’ve tried to address this gap in the virtual classroom is to use poetry writing as an entry point for […]
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In Defense of Paper
And these days, when my students’ physical proximity to each other and their teachers is more tightly controlled, I can still provide a space for physical proximity to their ideas: the ink and paper and smeary graphite, the texture of it all.
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Lesson Plans: a New Look at Data and Agency
In my first semester beat, I’m exploring the life-saving power of routines–but not just any routines. I’m talking about routines that make life easier, more efficient, and more familiar–even in the most daunting of times (cough, 2020, cough). I’m talking about routines that allow students to thrive whether you are teaching in person, virtually, hybrid, […]
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Talking to Teachers: Gift of Remote Learning, Flipped Classrooms, and Differentiation
I have heard numerous teachers say that although the end of last year was crazy, the start of this academic year is crazier. With even more uncertainty of what the year as whole will look like, teachers are navigating unexplored territory. Yet, amidst all of this (along with the increased tension of a pandemic, politics, […]
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Fostering Risk-Taking During the Revision Process
We all take risks when we need to. In essence, risks allow us to squash the “what ifs,” to feed our curiosity, to discover what’s possible. And of course, they offer us the chance – through trial and error – to strike gold. While there is a time to play it safe and trust what […]
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3 Steps Toward Making Space for Dialogue
Last month I started what will (hopefully) be a semester-long series of my attempts to tackle all of the messy, controversial real world happenings with my students in a way that somehow creates space for real dialogue, pushes students to consider other perspectives, but also protects vulnerable voices…and does it in a largely virtual space. […]
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Navigating Personal (& Political) Beliefs to Purposefully Respond to Student Writing
With all the conversation and debate around “student indoctrination” and political beliefs of educators, after weeks of contemplation, I decided to put my experience out into the world to help people navigate their personal and political beliefs in the context of writing instruction. There is a certain level of vulnerability that comes with addressing our […]
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How To Focus a Topic
I find many of of my students have seldom, if ever, been allowed to choose and focus their own topics. They have been, as I often say, “prompted to death.” Yet the work of choosing and focusing a topic are essential writing moves – perhaps the most important writing moves of all, because they involve […]
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Mentor Text Wednesday: Geek Wisdom
Mentor Text: Geek Wisdom edited by Stephen H. Segal (excerpts) Techniques: Using quotations Writing an Introduction Background – This year has presented many challenges hasn’t it? In the midst of it all, the work goes on, doesn’t it? I’ve actually found myself in a weird balance of developing new lessons and leaning on past planning, […]
Writing Even Now, Especially Now
Continuing to write when the rest of the world felt like it’s on fire helped me to feel a little more like me. It helped me to keep some normalcy. And it helped me to reflect on what it means to be a teacher writer these days.
Smokey Bear Persuasion and Wildfire Prevention Messaging
Recently, my student Daphne described taking a hike last month, as the Bobcat Fire burned 50 miles away within the Angeles National Forest. As she made her way down the hiking trail, she encountered a small lizard covered in ash, demonstrating just how far the smoke and ash had traveled. One of the largest fires […]
Welcoming Reflection
For many teachers, this fall has been a time of mourning. We mourn for the teaching strategies we can’t use right now, for the trickles of conversation before and after class that we used to enjoy with our students, for our feelings of self-efficacy in our chosen profession. Most of us are facing challenges that […]
Let’s Get Real: Checking in at the Three-Month Mark
This year, my posts for Moving Writers will focus on how I am learning to teach in two places at once as my school navigates a hybrid learning model wherein we have split students into three tracks: tracks A & B attend classes in opposite “two days in school/two days at home” rotations; students in […]
Workshop Routines for Littles, Middles, and More (Part I)
In my first semester beat, I’m exploring the life-saving power of routines–but not just any routines. I’m talking about routines that make life easier, more efficient, and more familiar–even in the most daunting of times (cough, 2020, cough). I’m talking about routines that allow students to thrive whether you are teaching in person, virtually, hybrid, […]
Talking to Teachers: “Writing Beside Them” and the Power of Revision
In this edition of T2T, I am speaking with yet another recent colleague from the American Community School of Abu Dhabi (see my previous post where I talked to Matt Foss an IB Language and Literature teacher). Jordan Moog is a grade 9 Global Studies and AP US History teacher and you will gain a […]
Diagnostic Writing: The Springboard for Relearning, Reflecting, and Revising
Earlier this month, the Moving Writers Team collaborated on a post titled “12 Writing Experiences for Processing the Election.” Within the post, I shared an idea where writers use the following prompt to build an argument surrounding the concept of compulsory voting. With my beat this school year being about revision, I saw this post […]
What Comes After Mentor Texts? Defining Each Writer’s Signature Style
My 8th graders are just starting to embark upon their high school application journey. In terms of writing, this means short answer application questions and longer essays in admissions tests. You know the kind. The kind that lure students into giving vague, voiceless answers to questions like, “What inspires you about school?” and “Give three […]
Generating Ideas and Conversations with Minimalist Quotes
Yes, it is cliché, but now more than ever… less is more. And, what we want more of with our writers this school year has changed. Right now, many people find themselves wanting more student conversations, more students ideas, and more writing, but giving more doesn’t happen to be the solution to getting more in […]
