Text: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill Audience: Grades 6-12 — Truly, there is something here for middle grades readers, and something for AP/IB literature students. (It’s my dream to do a joint middle school / IB seniors book club around this text. Hear that, Stefanie? ;)) Book Talk: This fairy tale […]
I acknowledge that learning to really craft writing on demand (rather than brain-dumping on demand) is an important skill for our students to cultivate. They will all engage in some kind of timed, test-like writing situation in their academic lives. And after that, they will still be asked to compose something on-the-spot in job interviews […]
Although there may be a horde of teachers who have whittled it down to a perfect science, no teacher has ever been excited or invigorated by preparing his or her students for a standardized writing test. And yet, it’s something that pretty much every one of us must do in one way or another. Like […]
Allison and I loved chatting with the Voices from the Middle podcast crew about teaching and writing and teaching writers! You can listen to it here!
I started a practice of nightly, independent writing with my students this year on a whim. (For the record, if you are ever going to start a giant, year-long project with students on a whim, do make sure that the idea came from Nancie Atwell. I think that makes a difference.) And so, since September, […]
Today’s guest post is from Paige Timmerman, a high school English teacher in Salem, Illinois. You can connect with her on Twitter at @pbrink12 or via e-mail at timmermanp@salemhigh.com. When I decided to take the plunge and try writer’s workshop over the summer, I knew I wanted a unit on college application and scholarship essays for […]
Text: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart Audience: Later middle school – high school (Perhaps 7-12?) Book Talk: Every summer, members of the incredibly wealthy Sinclair family gather on a private island. Everything appears to be perfect — perfect children, perfect relationships, plenty of money. But, of course, you know that things are […]
Conferring with writers has always been the hardest part of workshop teaching for me. When it goes well, a writing conference is where the energy is, where the lightbulb turns on, where the writing and the writer move forward. But it takes a lot of work to train writers to have a meaningful, energizing writing […]
Says she wants to dance to a different groove Now you know what to do G bust a move – – Young MC Among my all-time NCTE highlights came this year as members of the Moving Writing crew gathered in real life to share some of our favorite writing moves to support writers throughout […]
It’s hard to imagine that anything could be missing from the English teacher extravaganza that is NCTE. But if anything is missing, it is mandatory reflection time — time away from the learning and the exhibit hall (and the cheerleaders), to process. To be still. To think. To make a plan for the future. Right […]
