This year at Moving Writers, I’ll be dedicating some of my posts to exploring the ways I try to help two of my students, who I’ve nicknamed Troy and Abed. I’ve chosen them as a focus for the year partially because I already know them from their freshman and sophomore years, having worked closely […]
Category: Mike Ziegler
Hot Dogs and Apathy–A Case Study
The beginning of a new year–a year where I’ll focus my MW attention on two particular students in need of some writing inspiration.
Moving Writers’ Top Ten: The PD Wars and Why We Must Fight Them
As is our habit, we are taking the summer away from the blog to read, write, and recharge. We’ll be back in late August with new content, but for the summer, let’s take a journey down memory lane as we visit our ten most-read posts from the previous school year! I finished reading the outstanding […]
TFMTF: Thanos, Endgame, and other Writing “Marvels”
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 […]
Be Young! Have Fun! Teach Satire!
In one of her posts not so long ago, Hattie outlined a case for teaching a modern satire piece–a riff on the infamous A Modest Proposal. In her piece, she argues that there are three reasons the piece was worth examining in class alongside the original. I’d like to revisit two of those today as […]
A Cute Argument Against Obtuse Argument
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. […]
TFMTF: Learning Through the Rabbit Hole
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 […]
A Firm Defense of “Squishy” Research
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 […]
When They Get It (But Can’t Quite Say So…)
As an MTSS support coach, I’m constantly reminded that students at the losing end of the achievement gap are very rarely deficient in their ability to take an academic interest in a subject. But when a student’s reading and writing gaps are so far behind grade level that traditional assessments bar them from demonstrating their […]
Of Tweets and Teens
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m as likely to retweet something that entertains me as I am to retweet good educational practices when I see them (I’d argue both are important–one for reasons of my sanity and…actually I guess both of them for that.). Which means, for me, […]