We recently received this email from Angela in South Dakota: I am writing about a podcast interview that you did with Talks with Teachers. You had mentioned you did a unit on using text evidence, and it hit me at my heart as my students struggle with providing relevant evidence in their writing. I searched […]
This summer began with a hold-over goal from last summer: my daughter wanted to jump off the diving board. The previous summer had ended with her standing on the board, toes curled over the edge, but no jump. As soon as the pool opened this season, her mind was set. She would jump. And yet, […]
We were so excited to chat with Brian on an episode of one of our favorite education podcasts, Talks With Teachers! Listen to us talk all things mentor texts here!
My word-of-the-year, the thought on which I want to focus my energies and instructional experimentation, is “talk”. James Britton famously wrote that “writing floats on a sea of talk.” I want my students’ writing to float … and then to fly. So, yes, I want them to write five times as much as I can […]
This was us one year ago, celebrating Writing With Mentor‘s publication in the world. It’s been a wonderful year as we watched this book work its way into your hands, spoke to teachers across the country, and led workshops on how mentor texts can change your students’ writing. And it’s been an exhilarating fall as […]
On Moving Writers and in Writing With Mentors, you get a taste of my classroom and a peek behind the curtain of my planning process. But what you see is only half the story. While I am passionate about writing instruction, it’s only one half of my instruction. I also teach literature — through whole […]
When I start to think about a new school year, I have a tendency to mentally skip straight from buying school supplies in August to April — the place where my class is a well-oiled machine of student writers who live and breathe our workshop rhythms. In my mind’s eye, I can see them […]
The response to this series of posts about my experiment to give up traditional grading in my senior English class showed us that teachers are searching for a better way to assess student work — a way that helps build relationships and helps students grow. Here, you’ll find links to the three parts of this […]
I spent a lot of time with Donald Murray this year, working my way through his books and essays. One of my biggest takeaways is that neither I nor my students need to have all the answers before we begin writing — and that is such an encouragement to anxious student writers! In this post, […]
I closed the laptop, took a deep breath, looked at my husband, and said, “Next year, I want to be a really, really good teacher.” He just laughed and shook his head, used to such proclamations by now. Because at the end of every single school year, I am consumed with how I am going to […]
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