All Things Made New: My New Book About Writing

This year on Moving Writers, I’ve spotlighted re-reads of some older books about writing, and not all of them by teachers. Together, we examined the writer’s inner life with the poet Ted Hughes, practiced memory writing with the book Metro: Journeys in Writing Creatively, and honed our questions for conferring with the wonderful Barry Lane. […]

Syntax Study for Earth Day

Placing Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” and Craig Santos Perez’s “Good Fossil Fuels” side by side can elicit a wide-ranging classroom conversation about the ways the climate crisis is downplayed.  Through describing points of convergence and divergence, students can ponder how the “recycled” aspects of Smith’s syntax and prosody appearing in Perez’s poem challenge their thinking […]

Mentor Text Wednesday: The Night Attendant at the Gas Station

Mentor Text: The Night Attendant at the Gas Station by Michael Penny Techniques: Background – I’m going to pass along what may seem like a somewhat pithy piece of teaching advice. Zero inbox is your friend. Since school resumed after the holidays, I delete or file everything almost instantly. (professionally and personally) It also means that […]