To be honest, this isn’t really a writing post. Students do write in this activity, but truly this has much more to do with reading comprehension and synthesis. It was a lightning bolt that struck me at just the right time to help me quickly wrap up a reading unit, so I wanted to share […]
Author: Rebekah O'Dell
Free PD All Summer from the Vaults in the Moving Writers Community
The Moving Writers Community is designed to be a place for reading and writing teachers to dig deeper and more authentically with one another than the Moving Writers blog can do. It’s a place where I share the real life of my daily classroom (including occasional confessions about how absolutely horribly my Macbeth unit went […]
Making Grading Writing Easier with Frankenstein-ed Conversational Rubrics
In my dream-teaching world, I wouldn’t really grade anything at all. I’d sit down with each student and have a roomy conversation with them — leisurely, with lots of time for getting sidetracked if we want. And we’d talk about their work: what they did, what they tried to do, what I admired, what still […]
Join Us Around the Campfire! Registration Closes Soon!
We have been so overwhelmed and thrilled with the response to Camp Rewrite this summer that we are EXTENDING early bird pricing until Monday, May 15! Due to such a large (and wonderful) response, we are closing all registration on June 1. I want you to be there for nine weeks of conversations, professional development, […]
Why I love professional development that DOESN’T have all the answers
We are extending our early bird discount to May 15 to allow teachers more time to get funding from their schools or districts for this professional learning opportunity! CLICK HERE for more information and to register!
Summer 2023: Camp Rewrite
For those who have been around Moving Writers for awhile, we typically shutter (or go very quiet) for the summer to give both teachers and our writers a well-deserved break before the new year begins. But, if for you summer is equal parts rest and creative sprint as you gather inspiration for the new year, […]
An End-of-the-Year Essay Unit Plan that Brings Students + Literature Together
When Allison and I wrote Beyond Literary Analysis, we read thousands of pieces of writing in the quest to figure out what kind of analysis professional, published writer truly write outside academia. In other words, beyond what English teachers have culturally and historically deemed to be our analytical territory, what kind of analytical writing will […]
“Why Did You _____?”: Ask Students to Annotate Their Own Writing
We are thrilled to share a new contributing voice today, Marcus Luther! We spied his smart tweets about student reflection in writing and begged him to write something for us! Marcus is currently in his eleventh year as a public high school English teacher. He teaches 10th grade English and AP Literature in Keizer, OR, […]
The Magic of Flash Revision
I never speak at a conference or work with a district where I don’t talk about the magic of flash drafting. Probably second only to mentor texts, flash drafts have utterly changed the way I teach writing. A flash draft is a super-fast, down-and-dirty draft that moves ideas from your brain to paper. It is […]
Using MiniMoves to Elevate Writing in the Humanities
You don’t have to throw away everything you’ve ever taught in order to make a big change in student writing. Sometimes we want to do what we’re already doing … just better. Not a whole new plan. Not a new curriculum. Not starting-from-scratch. We want something we can insert into our regular routines that will […]