I’ve decided that structuring professional learning that supports teachers with strategies they can take back to the classroom just isn’t enough. I need to also build teachers’ own efficacy and identity as a writer.
Category: strategies
Hot Dogs and Apathy–A Case Study
The beginning of a new year–a year where I’ll focus my MW attention on two particular students in need of some writing inspiration.
A Cute Argument Against Obtuse Argument
I promise the title is the last of the math-related humor in this piece. I’ve already profiled the big Narrative Journalism unit my PLC does every year, but I had an interesting experience today that made me think that maybe one element of that writing project is worth revisiting in a bit more detail. […]
TFMTF: Learning Through the Rabbit Hole
Instead of giving you a specific account to follow with this edition of Teaching From My Twitter Feed, I thought we’d have some fun with one my favorite Twitter joys: The Rabbit Hole. There’s a Rabbit Hole for every topic you can imagine on Twitter, and probably for a few you can’t. There’s also lots […]
When They Get It (But Can’t Quite Say So…)
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 […]
Writing Our Way In: Tips for Balancing Literature Study and Writing Workshop
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 […]
Of Tweets and Teens
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, […]
Making Student Voice “Pop”
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 […]
Wait! 1 Book Recommendation and 4 Productive Pauses for the Problem-solving Teacher
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 […]
What’s Saving My Life: My Classroom Library
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.
