Each month in the Moving Writers Community, I share a complete reading or writing unit plan from my classroom. But this month, by popular demand, I am instead sharing an 11-page e-book detailing the process and resources I use for Kelly Gallagher’s famous Article of the Week in my own classroom. Here’s what you’ll find […]
Category: Rebekah O’Dell
Using Mini Portfolios to Assess What Actually Matters in Writing
For the last two — almost three — years I’ve been in survival mode. Pandemic stress + endless COVID-school shifts + serious health issues in my family have left me treading water. And, to be honest, when you’re drowning, you’re not pondering innovative ways of getting to the shore; you are grasping for survival in […]
Turn Local History into Advocacy with Three Different Writing Projects
One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is getting students to feel connected to history. To them, especially at the middle school age, history might as well be the Milky Way– kids are told that it’s real and that they are a part of it, but the scope of history often has such galactical […]
Graphic Novel Writing: A Breather Unit
A few posts ago, I wrote about what Beth Rimer calls “Breather Units.” A Breather Unit is a 2-3 week mini-unit in which a teacher engages in something lighter–or perhaps does a bit of review–after a deep and intense unit of study. Inspired by a Graphic Novel Writing unit Rebekah posted to the Moving Writers […]
9 Mini-Moves for Argument Writing
One of the things I’m loving most about Mini Moves for Writers is how flexible the video lessons are — able to slide into so many different kinds of writing units and activities. For example, take the Scene Drop Intro. Writers could use this in a review, an op-ed, a profile, a personal essay. And […]
Mini-Mentors for Making a Claim
My students have been working on their first pieces of serious analytical writing this year, and as they drafted I noticed two main issues with their claims: Many were not clearly or obviously stated Some were overly-simple, cliched, or, to be honest, boring Ever have these problems? (Always? Are you like me and you always […]
Get Your FREE 10-page Quick Start Guide to Using Mini Moves for Writers
Download our FREE 10-page Quick Start Guide We’ve made it even easier to use Mini Moves for Writers in your classroom with a free 10-page quick start guide — full of ideas for incorporating our video writing mini-lessons into your curriculum! We’re releasing two new writing lessons each week! Make sure to subscribe so that […]
Spring Professional Development with Moving Writers
We’d love to see you this spring for live webinars (recorded if you can’t make it!) Here’s what we’re offering so far in March and April! Just in time to fill your plan book for National Poetry Month, brief “poetry pauses” not only build students’ capacity for critical reading + stamina for writing, but they […]
Offering Students Choice + Voice Through Mini Moves
I love a good digital choice board — a way for students to have a self-directed choice in their learning. You can make choice boards out of anything, but you can also curate your own choice board using Mini Moves for Writers videos. I’ve made you one choice board below: four different mini moves that […]
Targeting Writing Instruction to Students’ Needs
Every writer needs something a little bit different, which is one of the things that makes writing instruction so challenging! But whether the writers in your room need a bit of skill review (one of those things you assumed they “should know how to do by now”) or needs a bit of a challenge (so […]
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