I teach big kids and always have. High schoolers. But since writing instruction is my great teaching passion — and since summer provides few outlets for actual interaction with students — my almost-three-year-old daughter became my student as I subjected her to a summer of preschool writing workshop. How does this endeavor equal summer fun […]
Author: Rebekah O'Dell
Introducing Mentor Texts & Introducing Ourselves
In my classroom, the school year typically comes on like gangbusters. I begin fast and furious as a sort of illusion — more for my benefit than for the students. It’s as though I feel that the faster I tread the beginning-of-school water, the less I’ll feel like I’m drowning. This year has been very different. […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #1
Our most-viewed page during the 2013-2014 school year was actually the link to our Mentor Text Dropbox Project. Finding mentor texts can often be one of the most challenging – and time consuming! – parts of effective writing instruction. Why spend hours flipping through books and surfing the web when we can share? The link […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #2
Responding to the Writer Not the Writing Lucy Calkins’ wisdom about teaching the writer (and not the writing) continues to reverberate decades after the publication of her book The Art of Teaching Writing. Yet many of us do not teach in a way that promotes writers. I know because I was one of them. In the […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #3
The Fifth Pillar of Writing Workshop Lucy Calkins says that kids “need to see their work reach other readers.” This explains why I spent much of winter break planning and writing posts for the new blog, checking blog stats, and refreshing my Twitter feed. Have my words reached anyone? Have they made a difference? A blogging […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #4
A Lesson for Tomorrow: Writing a Persuasive Conclusion “What do you need more of?” I queried. Within minutes, more than a dozen post-its on my board read: “A mini-lesson on conclusions!” “Conclusions! Please!” “Conclusions — I don’t know what to do! Help!” And these were my IB seniors, still convinced at the end of their […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #5
When Even Writing Workshop Doesn’t Work I am almost obnoxious in my whole-hearted evangelism of writing workshop. (Just ask my colleague who has banned the phrase “mini-lesson” from our future conversations.) And still, in all my crowing about the successes of writing workshop, I have to admit something to you. Sometimes it doesn’t work. “Kevin” […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #6
Mentor Text Wednesday: Creating Writers not Writing Automatons Can we agree that we hate the five paragraph essay? Every time I confer with a student who says, “Well, I have two body paragraphs, but I need one more”, I shudder. FIVE IS NOT A MAGIC NUMBER has become my mantra. I’m thinking about making a […]
Resource Roundup: Using Evernote for Conferring
Over my years teaching in a writing workshop, I have developed scads of forms and charts in an attempt to track my conversations with students during reading and writing conferences. Binders. Whole-class charts. Individual student charts. You name it, I have spent hours in Excel creating it. And, every year, by the spring, I have […]
Top Ten of ’13-’14: #7
Mentor Text: “Better With Age” by Chris B. Brown. Grantland.com. 30 January 2014. Writing Technique: Supporting an argument with evidence Background: Truth be told, I am not a sporty girl. Athletic metaphors in the writing classroom do not come naturally to me. Thus, whenever I see one of my favorite cultural institutions write about sports, I jump […]
moving writers 