Some thoughts on how to help our students become writers in modern contexts as well as traditional ones.
Category: analytical writing
A New Approach to Literary Essays in Middle School: Part II
Today’s guest post is part of a series on changing the way we think about literary essays in middle school. In Part 2, Beth Toerner (@btoerner) will share how she moved students from thinking about texts in interesting, fresh ways to actually producing polished pieces of literary writing! Earlier this week, I shared the beginning […]
All the Culture Wars We Cannot See
When asking students to write about topics that require a lot of context, we have to consider not only what THEY might not know, but what WE might not know when we give students freedom to write about their world.
Mentor Text Wednesday: Say Something Nice
Mentor Texts: The Say Something Nice series at Birth.Movies.Death Writing Techniques: Criticism Counterargument Tone and Voice Background – Our students consume a fair amount of pop culture. They’re able to budget their time in such a way that they’re consuming media at an insane pace, binge watching like mad, and watching everything Netflix has to […]
A Late Night Mentor Text
I’ve written before about lessons inspired by my Twitter feed and it happened again early this week. Sometimes, right when you need it most, the universe drops the perfect mentor text right in your lap. My AP Language students are busy prepping for the exam and all of them need a little more work with […]
Argument in the Wild: Reading & Writing from Media-Rich Texts
The idea that “everything’s an argument” seems almost too obvious these days. After all, talk to almost any adolescent today and it’s clear how aware they are of the ways in which they are constantly being persuaded, whether it’s an editorial from the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, the latest newscast from […]
Scaffolding Authentic Literary Analysis
Sometimes we need to scaffold the thinking that goes into writing more than we need to scaffold where a topic sentence goes in a paragraph. Mentor texts can help with that!
Annotated Intentions (and Why They’ll Change the Way You Grade)
Student pre-annotation lets teachers grade writing based on student intentions, resulting in a more robust understanding of their work.
Mentor Text Wednesday: At The Movies
Mentor Text: Someone Will Come Along: Rogue One, Logan and Hope by Jessica Plummer Writing Techniques: Writing Literary Analysis Essay Structure Background: If, as Stephen King would say, you are a “Faithful Reader,” then you know I’m a bit of a geek. If you’re here for the first time… Hi, I’m Jay, and I really […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: In Praise of the Secondary Character
Mentor Texts: “In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series” – Sady Doyle Writing Techniques: Character analysis Applying a critical lens Voice Background: I am re-reading the Harry Potter series with my oldest daughter. We’re reading the gorgeous illustrated editions. This means that we are now on our second go-round with Chamber of Secrets, as […]
moving writers 