On Monday, I visited the STEAM Fair at our local early years school. My oldest daughter is in kindergarten there, and my wife teaches there. My wife had shared what her students were doing, and my daughter was vibrating with excitement about the chance to show off her work. My obvious highlight was watching my […]
Category: Jay Nickerson
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 […]
New Notebook Rituals
As this post drops, I’m wrapping up the second week of the new semester. I’ve got new courses, new students and new ideas. One of the first things that I try to establish is the importance of our notebooks. I actually try to do a lot of our work, our writing, our responding… our thinking […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Infographic Rankings
Mentor Texts: Rolling Stone magazine’s Threat Assessment infographic Entertainment Weekly magazine’s The Bullseye infographic Writing Techniques: Organizing information Tone Visual presentation Background: Hi. I’m Jay and I’m a recovering magazineaholic. I’ve mentioned it here before, but magazines are wonderful things, especially for a mentor text based teacher. They contain, if you’re getting a variety of […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: No Convincing Answer
Mentor Text: excerpt from “Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant” by Wells Tower Writing Techniques: Research writing Writing counterargument Exploring difficult issues Expanding writing Background: It is a terribly kept secret that I am a huge fan of The Best American series. These annual collections of writing litter my workspaces, and live in every corner […]
Planning
As I write this, I’m in my last full week of classes in the first semester of the year. The exam is written, and copied, sitting in a drawer. My students are putting the finishing touches on the last of their work. And my head is pretty firmly a few days ahead in second semester. […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Eulogy
Mentor Text: 10 Inspiring,Confusing and Humorous Eulogies of the Famous via The Atlantic Writing Techniques: Specific Form Considering Audience Background: This is actually a post that should be subtitled “What I’ll Do Better Next Time” My Grade 11 students are in their final weeks of classes, and we’ve been working on MultiGenre Projects based upon research […]
The Chanie Project
I’ve written about this before, but this year, Gord Downie, of The Tragically Hip fame has had an impact in my classroom. Long story short, The Hip is largely considered to be Canada’s official band. Their songs, with Downie’s lyrics, are frequently poetic ruminations on our country and identity. In May of last year, Downie […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: The Tweet-o-graphic
Mentor Text: Women of Isis Infographic by Karishma Sheth & Thomas Alberty Writing Techniques: Editing Purpose Presentation Background: I’m a huge fan of The Best American Series. As a reader, and a teacher, I find them valuable beyond compare. There are a handful, such as poetry, non-required reading, short stories and science-fiction and fantasy, that […]
Resolutions
2016 is just about done. That, as we all know, makes it resolution time. Even if we’re not publicly stating them, we’re making them. Of course, as teachers, we did this already, back at the beginning of the school year, right? And, well, we’re sort of consistently making resolutions throughout the school year, as a […]
moving writers 