I’m very happy that my idea of creating Embarrassment Free Zones resonated with many teachers and students. My goal in this post is to establish that there are situations when Free Zones won’t work. Yes, that’s right.
Category: Planning
No Dumb Questions: Using Inquiry to Drive Research
In his 1995 work, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, astrophysicist Carl Sagan wrote a sentence that would be uttered in classrooms around the world for decades to come: “there’s no such thing as a dumb question.” We’ll assume, of course, that Sagan is excluding the students in your class who […]
A Systematic, Realistic, No-Worksheet Approach to Teaching Articles (a, an, the) to ELLs
This ready-to-use mini grammar unit aims to provide a framework for the student to systematically learn and use articles in their spoken and written English. Slides included.
A Framework for Inclusive Unit Plans
“..most long term plans address curriculum, a few good ones address pedagogy; but, most don’t address the single most important data point: what we know and don’t know about ourselves and our students.”
Bridging Gaps Through the Power of Writing Through the Eyes of the Student
I have had a lot of conversations this year with teachers about expectations for students, specifically 9th grade and high school students, and it is clear that not everyone agrees on what the expectations should be for writers at the secondary level. Which, honestly is ironic considering the amount of standards and standardized assessments that […]
Providing Experience to Write About: the Quicksand River Un-assignment
We often give them common prompts, or common texts sets with common prompts. We give them common pieces of literature to write about. So why not a common experience?
The Enneagram Meets the ELA Classroom
Ever heard of the Enneagram? How could implementing personality types into ELA help your students better analyze characters and create authentic characters? I take you through some moves in this MW piece
An Open Letter to Teachers (and those who love them)
Dear (overly tested subject) teacher, How are you? February in Texas was a rough ride. And, I’ve been thinking about how to support you. I’ve been thinking about the most meaningful thing to write about this month every day to add to the writing resources and ideas for supporting teachers of writing and writers themselves. […]
Zoom Out, Zoom In, Transfer
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, […]
Include ELLs by Including “Mainstream” Students
The paradoxical truth about teaching is that you can be an excellent teacher to all students only by being an excellent teacher to one student at a time.
moving writers 