Two weeks ago, I wrote about one of the very most foundational elements of any writing workshop: student choice. I gave you some ways to wade in; I gave you some ways to try something new with choice if you’re already a veteran. And then I asked you for lingering questions and concerns, a record […]
I’ve found over the years that “writing workshop” means a lot of things to a lot of people. So, what does it mean to have a writing workshop functioning in your classroom? How do you even take the first step? This semester, my regular every-other-Monday “beat” will focus on the fundamental building blocks of writing […]
Today’s guest post comes to us from one of our 100 Days of Summer Writing participants, Erin Palazzo. Erin is a high school English teacher in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. She loves helping teens fall in love with reading and develop confidence in writing through mentor texts and readers & writers workshops. Her students would also add that […]
We’d all be perfect teachers if we had our students all day, every day, and English was their only class. Then we would have time to do all the things. We could use every single smart idea we found on Twitter. We could perfectly balance reading and writing and vocabulary study. We could study every […]
Today’s guest post from Kristen Bond (@readwritemore) is PERFECT for the beginning-of-the-school-year wading into writing that most of us do with our students! Why not start the year with a poem and beautiful reading of it? Here’s a bit about Kristen: My name is Kristin Bond and I work at the American Community School of Abu […]
Happy New Year, friends! We hope you are rested and excited for a new school year! We are excited for a new blogging year, too! This year on Moving Writers, you’ll see a couple of new faces (our friend Noah Waspe (@mrwteach) and the amazing, intrepid Kristin Bond (@ReadWriteMore). And you’ll also see more cohesive, […]
Y’all, it wasn’t even close. Doubling the number of views gained by our other most-popular posts is our #1 post from Hattie (@TeacherHattie): “Why This / Not That: A Thinking Routine to Move Kids from Identification to Analysis”. Enjoy! ____________________________________________________________________________________________ One of the biggest challenges in teaching rhetorical analysis is teaching kids to move beyond identification […]
I think my colleagues have learned not to bring up “the research paper” with me lest I start on a tear about how research is in every kind of writing, and researching is important but research papers aren’t, etc. I really feel strongly about it, though! All writers need to know how to gather and use research, […]
Halloween in July, anyone? Last October, Allison treated us to six ideas for spooky writing. Make a note in your planner now to pull these out next October — spread them throughout the month! Or, really, use them anytime. Because all the adolescents I know love to be scared! ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Lately my son’s favorite activity […]
Last summer, Moving Writers did an Ask Moving Writers series. A question we got again and again dealt with giving hundreds of students meaningful feedback while still teaching. And sleeping. In our 4th most popular post of 2017-2018, Tricia Ebarvia tackles this question! ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Hi, Elizabeth! First, thank you for asking this important question! We […]
