Writing Study – moving writers

October 4, 2021October 3, 2021mrfitzfinkle

Big Picture/Closeup: a model for reading and writing

Closeup elements are how the story is told. Big Picture elements are the story itself.

September 6, 2021September 5, 2021mrfitzfinkle

The Choices Writers Make (If Allowed)

“…in many writing classrooms, students are learning to write by not being allowed to do any of the things “real” writers do: make choices.”

November 8, 2019stefaniejochman

Writers, Start Your Engines: A Mid-Leap Dispatch

Last month, I described my plans and worries for the new risk I’m taking with a familiar course: a mini fiction workshop in my IB English class. Last week we finished reading our mentor texts, stories from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, and now students are in the middle of some independent […]

October 31, 2019October 30, 2019Michael Ziegler

Conferencing Through Chaos…by Maybe Embracing the Chaos of Conferencing?

For those who’ve been following the ongoing adventures (exploits? misadventures?) of my focus student, Troy, and me this year, be aware that I’m taking a blog off from that beat. Troy and I are kind of in a holding pattern right now, and we’re also in between writing assignments as a whole class, so as […]

June 17, 2019June 4, 2019megankortlandt

Moving Writers’ Top Ten: What LEGO bricks and Writing Intervention Have in Common

As is our habit, we are taking the summer away from the blog to read, write, and recharge. We’ll be back in late August with new content, but for the summer, let’s take a journey down memory lane as we visit our ten most-read posts from the previous school year! “You have to learn the […]

April 24, 2019April 23, 2019Michael Ziegler

TFMTF: Thanos, Endgame, and other Writing “Marvels”

I’ve been a film fanatic since college, so my Twitter feed has a disproportionate share of film criticism amidst all the excellent educator voices. One of the better sites I’ve discovered for film coverage is Film School Rejects (Twitter handle: @oneperfectshot). They often just tweet singular frames from films which makes for great visual analysis […]

April 18, 2019April 17, 2019Michael Ziegler

Be Young! Have Fun! Teach Satire!

In one of her posts not so long ago, Hattie outlined a case for teaching a modern satire piece–a riff on the infamous A Modest Proposal. In her piece, she argues that there are three reasons the piece was worth examining in class alongside the original. I’d like to revisit two of those today as […]

January 30, 2019January 29, 2019Michael Ziegler

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 […]

October 31, 2018October 31, 2018Michael Ziegler

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, […]

October 18, 2018October 17, 2018Michael Ziegler

I Get Wise with a Little Pop From My Friends

I want my students to be continually thinking about context–cultural, historical, and otherwise. For many of my students, the boundaries of their writing AND reading are constricted by their narrow contextual pools of knowledge. Helping them to see why the narratives of their history classes or the view through the microscope in biology are actually […]