Michael Ziegler

September 10, 2021September 9, 2021Michael Ziegler

New Perspective for an Old(ish) Teacher

Before laying down an opening for this year’s first post, I found myself browsing around the Moving Writers site and checking out some of the lovely work my colleagues are already producing. Hattie found a way to recharge from last year in the form of an outstanding education book that inspired her. David found similar […]

April 9, 2021April 8, 2021Michael Ziegler

What Happens to Feedback When Conferring Gets Organized

Providing feedback that builds on conferring conversations can be a game changer…if you start keeping track of your conversations with writers!

March 12, 2021March 13, 2021Michael Ziegler

Turning the Page on Writing Conferences…with Reading Conferences

Some thoughts on why I always establish reading conferring in order to prepare students to confer about writing.

February 12, 2021February 11, 2021Michael Ziegler

The Conference That Will Change Their Life*

Conferring with writers about their next English class is as important as those writing conferences you love having with them–here’s some ideas for how to make them effective.

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021Michael Ziegler

Guided by (too many) Voices

It’s funny how a few things in school remain mostly normal despite everything else feeling so strange this year. Like the annual arrival of National Honors Society nominations– it was a nice reminder of “normal” when a student in my Zoom last week asked if we could set up a breakout room so he could […]

December 11, 2020December 10, 2020Michael Ziegler

Virtual Teaching Is the Worst Video Game I’ve Ever Played…But I Think I Figured Out How to Beat the Game!

Reconsidering my classroom practices from the perspective of a very serious video gamer…a post about writing that just happens to use video games as a metaphor

October 16, 2020October 15, 2020Michael Ziegler

Writing Relationships: “Slide”ing into Writing

This year at Moving Writers, I hope to explore various ways to utilize writing practices in your classroom to build strong social-emotional relationships with students despite the physical separations imposed on classrooms by the pandemic. I hope very much that this proves to be a limited series… When I posted my first contribution of the […]

September 11, 2020September 10, 2020Michael Ziegler

Writing Relationships

With almost everyone back to school in some unusual, frustrating form by now, it feels like a weird time to be asking you to kick back and read an educational blog. I know–I lost you at “kick back.” But I’m hoping this one might be timely–it’s a revelation I had this Tuesday afternoon after spending […]

March 12, 2020March 11, 2020Michael Ziegler

A 3D Model for Voice

One of my favorite things about being part of a community of English teachers both in my building and online (Hi Teacher Twitter Buddies!) is that every once in a while this really fun thing happens where a piece of writing gets published somewhere with really powerful voice or a really fun structure and all […]

December 5, 2019December 5, 2019Michael Ziegler

“The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle” (and How to Help Your Writers Deliver it with Assessment Reviews)

I came across one of those well-intended but ultimately wrong-minded tweets today while scrolling through Twitter. It offered advice for “ELA teachers” from someone who isn’t one. It suggested encouraging students to try out a new Microsoft Word feature that will basically auto-suggest (or replace, if I interpreted the gif correctly) segments of student writing […]