“You know what would be a great thing to try in the middle of a pandemic and a gray, icy winter while I’m teaching in two places at once? Teaching a brand new text!” Said no one. Ever. And yet…here I am! Last spring, I sent a survey to the juniors who would be in […]
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.
In my first semester beat, I’m exploring the life-saving power of routines–but not just any routines. I’m talking about routines that make life easier, more efficient, and more familiar–even in the most daunting of times (cough, 2020, cough). I’m talking about routines that allow students to thrive whether you are teaching in person, virtually, hybrid, […]
In last month’s post on Moving Writers, I shared how some simple poetry writing helped students tease out a theme in their reading. Crafting poetry can also help students dig deeper into details they later incorporate in the heart of their writing. Prewriting with poetry can give literary analysis essays a pulse. While waiting in line […]
One of my greatest NCTE joys have been the times members of the Moving Writers team have gotten to join forces at NCTE. I love these people — their deeply-felt philosophies about teaching writing to make a difference in children’s learning and lives, their practical, boots-on-the-ground, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that brilliance. Here are some of the resources from […]
Last month, I described my plans and worries for the new risk I’m taking with a familiar course: a mini fiction workshop in my IB English class. Last week we finished reading our mentor texts, stories from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, and now students are in the middle of some independent […]
I’ve been a film fanatic since college, so my Twitter feed has a disproportionate share of film criticism amidst all the excellent educator voices. One of the better sites I’ve discovered for film coverage is Film School Rejects (Twitter handle: @oneperfectshot). They often just tweet singular frames from films which makes for great visual analysis […]
I promise the title is the last of the math-related humor in this piece. I’ve already profiled the big Narrative Journalism unit my PLC does every year, but I had an interesting experience today that made me think that maybe one element of that writing project is worth revisiting in a bit more detail. […]
Instead of giving you a specific account to follow with this edition of Teaching From My Twitter Feed, I thought we’d have some fun with one my favorite Twitter joys: The Rabbit Hole. There’s a Rabbit Hole for every topic you can imagine on Twitter, and probably for a few you can’t. There’s also lots […]
I recently dropped into a colleague’s class while her students were in the midst of a pretty deep dive of a research project and was impressed by some of the conversations I listened to about source reliability and peer-review. It made me second guess–for a moment–the project my kids are working on right now wherein […]
moving writers 