If you’ve taken note of my Twitter handle, you might be curious about where it comes from. I didn’t join Twitter as a teacher, and my initial avatar was a drawing I did of a stuffed monkey that used to travel with my wife and I wherever we went. Being drawn to artistic pursuits, and […]
Category: Books That Move Us
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!
Bringing Life to Literary Analysis
This post explores an alternative approach to literary analysis that might make your students feel more engaged with the writing genre.
Books That Move Us: Beyond the Five Paragraph Essay
Today’s guest writer is Chasidy Burton, who teaches English to juniors and seniors in Nashville, TN. Chasidy loves to teach writing for the empowerment students experience with getting words on the page and the discovery of their own voice. She is constantly seeking to better her teaching practice, and she enjoys reading about unconventional approaches to teaching and literacy. […]
Books That Move Us: Independent Writing by Colleen Cruz
This past fall at NCTE, I think startled Colleen Cruz when I gasped and, like a true fangirl, exclaimed, “Ohmygosh! Independent Writing! I read it on the plane! That book is major. REALLY major.” She was completely lovely to me but probably surprised to hear me raving about one of her older titles. I picked […]
Building Writing through Independent Reading Projects – a Follow-Up
In January, I reviewed Dan Feigelson’s Reading Projects Reimagined, and I was on fire! I couldn’t wait to take the brilliant-yet-simple idea of inviting students to track an idea of personal interest throughout a book. No more prescribed annotations! No more end-of-chapter questions! No more herding students into tightly-constructed pens of thought built on what […]
Books that Move Us: The Revision Toolbox (Georgia Heard)
From revision checklists to quick exercises to suggested talking points for strategic conferences and an appendix replete with graphic organizers, The Revision Toolbox is brimful with use-in-your-classroom-tomorrow ideas. But it also vibrates with inspirational quotes and big ideas.
Books That Move Us: Reading Projects Reimagined (Dan Feigelson)
You know how the greats always make it look easy? This is the way I feel whenever I get to listen to Katie Ray or Tom Newkirk — they say something clear and simple and beautiful and even common sense, but it absolutely rocks my world. So it was when I read Dan Feigelson’s Reading […]
moving writers 