As an MTSS support coach, I’m constantly reminded that students at the losing end of the achievement gap are very rarely deficient in their ability to take an academic interest in a subject. But when a student’s reading and writing gaps are so far behind grade level that traditional assessments bar them from demonstrating their […]
My beat this fall is all about exploring how students can write their way INto texts and use their writing (or others’) to learn more about literature. If you’re looking for new ways to use writing in a literature study or hoping to blend writing workshop into a course where it doesn’t seem like a […]
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m as likely to retweet something that entertains me as I am to retweet good educational practices when I see them (I’d argue both are important–one for reasons of my sanity and…actually I guess both of them for that.). Which means, for me, […]
As English teachers, we often fancy ourselves not just teachers of reading and writing, but keepers of a sacred flame: Culture. For better and worse, we’ve hitched our wagon to both the humanities and the arts and made it our role to help make students both literate and “worldly”. It’s an interesting time to […]
Image via publicdomainpictures.net Let’s face it: no matter how well we run our reading and writing workshops, there are about a hundred different points in any given class period where problems can crop up. There’s no such thing as a perfect lesson plan, and as a result, teachers have to be decision making machines on a […]
Over the years, I’ve probably revised my writing lesson plans more times than I’ve moved classrooms, and through that, I’ve come to learn that some of my best writing instruction is rooted right back where my reading instruction takes place: my classroom library.
I think it’s safe to say that if you’re visiting us here at Moving Writers, you’re probably the sort of teacher who enters a new school year with a sense of adventure and possibility. I’m also going to guess that you already seek the positive in your students and offer all sorts of wonderful opportunities […]
Teaching has so much in common with baseball, it’s crazy. I could go on and on about curveballs, errors, data analytics–and that only skims the surface. Seriously, don’t get me started. That said, I do want to drill into one little area of comparison between the two entities: success, in baseball and at school, involves […]
I teach Grade 9 to 12 English thematically. If you teach middle years, this isn’t that radical an approach, I know, but it’s different for high school. For over a decade, most English teams I’ve worked with have done this alongside me. It’s a lifesaver for many reasons. Giving each course an overarching theme gives […]
I love the planning part of teaching, taking ideas, and seeing what they might become. It’s one of my favorite things about writing for Moving Writers, because it gives me another outlet for putting those ideas to use. As a planner, I’m constantly noting things that intrigue or interest me, filing them away for future […]
