Skip to content
moving writers

moving writers

Move the writing. Move the writer.

  • 100 Days Of Summer Writing
  • About Moving Writers
    • Allison & Rebekah
    • Books
    • Contributing Writers
    • Disclosure Policy
    • Our Beliefs & Our Mission
  • Inside the Blended Workshop Community
  • Mentor Text Dropbox
  • Webinar Series + On-Demand Courses
    • On-Demand: Helping Writers Find Ideas
    • On-Demand: Helping Writers Push Ideas into Writing Projects (In Any Genre)
    • On-Demand: Guiding Readers and Writers to Reflect + Set Goals
    • On-Demand: Reading Responses to Boost Critical Thinking in Reading + Writing
    • Talking Through It All: Conferring Through the Toughest Year
    • Language Field Guide Basics

Category: Brett Vogelsinger

March 19, 2021March 19, 2021Brett Vogelsinger

What Went Right?

I write this post coming off of a “grading high.” Assessing student work does not always leave me feeling cheerful and refreshed. There are times it leaves me feeling discouraged and plagued with questions: “What went wrong? How did so many of my students miss the mark on this skill?” But as we race into […]

Continue Reading "What Went Right?"
January 29, 2021January 30, 2021Brett Vogelsinger

Designing With Grammar

Teaching grammar is my instructional nemesis. I’m sure I am not alone in feeling this way. For nearly twenty years now, I have worked at teaching grammar in the context of writing, without skill-and-drill worksheets, and every year I tweak my approach, often some variation of Harry Noden’s creative Image Grammar approach. But it’s still […]

Continue Reading "Designing With Grammar"
December 18, 2020December 17, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

Thinking Smaller

I am proud that under normal circumstance I can choreograph a lot of “movement” into a single class period, but for this year, I am learning to embrace the fact that I cannot. I need smaller, simpler moves in a writing workshop that we can learn together and execute well. Otherwise, frustration will prevail.

Continue Reading "Thinking Smaller"
November 20, 2020November 19, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

Welcoming Reflection

For many teachers, this fall has been a time of mourning.  We mourn for the teaching strategies we can’t use right now, for the trickles of conversation before and after class that we used to enjoy with our students, for our feelings of self-efficacy in our chosen profession. Most of us are facing challenges that […]

Continue Reading "Welcoming Reflection"
October 23, 2020October 22, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

In Defense of Paper

And these days, when my students’ physical proximity to each other and their teachers is more tightly controlled, I can still provide a space for physical proximity to their ideas: the ink and paper and smeary graphite, the texture of it all.

Continue Reading "In Defense of Paper"
September 18, 2020September 13, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

On the Lookout For Happy Accidents

My greatest hope is that amid this newness, the “I-feel-like-a-first-year-teacher-again” of it all, we can all learn some things about teaching writing that we may never have otherwise explored.

Continue Reading "On the Lookout For Happy Accidents"
June 16, 2020June 16, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

Surprise and Emergence

In our writing classrooms, 2020 has been a year full of surprise. In Pennsylvania, we had a warm, nearly snowless winter and sudden, snappy late frosts in in the spring, so it’s been a year of surprises in the garden just outside my back door as well. Recently, I started taking some photos of striking […]

Continue Reading "Surprise and Emergence"
May 11, 2020May 8, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

Poetry as An Act of Revision

One key idea threads through my series this year about poetry as part of the writing process for other genres: poetry sharpens our diction. Frequent practice in reading and writing poetry tunes our eyes and ears to what works and does not work in our choice of words, the same way practicing guitar helps train […]

Continue Reading "Poetry as An Act of Revision"
April 13, 2020April 10, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

A Collaborative Poem for An Isolating Pause

The good news is that words bind us together and can help us to create collaboratively with our students even as we all adjust to our new, socially distant ways.

Continue Reading "A Collaborative Poem for An Isolating Pause"
March 16, 2020March 10, 2020Brett Vogelsinger

Extended Poetry to Develop Drafting Stamina

Writing poetry is a rite of passage for many teens. Some discover it on their own, crafting lyrics or daily musings in dog-eared notebooks.  Some discover it in English class when a teacher invites them to write beside the beautiful words of published poets. This year, when we returned from winter break to start 2020 […]

Continue Reading "Extended Poetry to Develop Drafting Stamina"

Posts navigation

Older posts

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 15,939 other followers

Join the Conversation on Facebook!

Join the Conversation on Facebook!

Categories

Readers Are Loving …

  • Writing in the Wild: Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay
    Writing in the Wild: Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay
  • What Happens to Feedback When Conferring Gets Organized
    What Happens to Feedback When Conferring Gets Organized
  • Arguing for Messy Solutions
    Arguing for Messy Solutions
  • Discovering Language: Field Guide Entries that Explore the Language That Means the Most
    Discovering Language: Field Guide Entries that Explore the Language That Means the Most
  • Two Truths and a Lie
    Two Truths and a Lie
  • Structure as Mentor Text: How Can We Organize Ideas Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay?
    Structure as Mentor Text: How Can We Organize Ideas Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay?
  • The Braided Essay
    The Braided Essay
  • First Day of School: Six Word Stories with a Twist
    First Day of School: Six Word Stories with a Twist
  • Mentor Text Wednesday: My Honest Poem
    Mentor Text Wednesday: My Honest Poem
  • 5 Ideas for Using "Dear Basketball" in Your Writing Class Tomorrow
    5 Ideas for Using "Dear Basketball" in Your Writing Class Tomorrow
Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×