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 […]
A little while back, a dad took to social media to pat himself on the back about the lesson he’d taught his daughter when she wanted to open a can of beans but didn’t know how to use the can opener and the Twitterverse collectively cringed. In case you were lucky enough to miss it, […]
Conferring with students about their reading and writing is one of those things I never feel like I will completely master. There will always be new ideas for simplifying, streamlining the process + making those conversations even more productive for students. Especially this year. Fortunately, Hattie + Mike love this stuff + are sharing ideas […]
Ever since Marilyn Pryle’s Reading With Presence I have kept her book on the edge of my desk and picked it up every single week. The simplicity and elegance of Marilyn’s reading responses unlocked something for me — something that streamlined and systematized reading instruction, something that made my goals clear to me and clear […]
I’ve been on a journey this fall to think about ways to move students toward increasing writing independence. We know mentor texts benefit writers of all ages. We know that isolating the moves writers make helps newer, less-experienced writers demystify the writing process and take their own work to new heights. But we also want […]
In my job as a literacy consultant, I work mostly with teachers and administrators, not students. While I sometimes miss the kids, I really love getting to serve the grown-ups in the system because we are all learners, and sometimes – heck, way too often – we spend all of our energy worrying about how […]
Where do we start when teaching reading outside of the ELA classroom? Abigail takes you through some of the moves you may take. It’s not as scary as it might seem.
Continuing to write when the rest of the world felt like it’s on fire helped me to feel a little more like me. It helped me to keep some normalcy. And it helped me to reflect on what it means to be a teacher writer these days.
I’m finding that meaningful, unpolished support still looks awfully familiar to some of the same things I valued back when the world was normal.
Writing for an audience isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about engaging in a community of thinkers and learning from the process.
