writing with mentors – moving writers

May 6, 2021May 6, 2021Abigail Lund

Playlist of Your Life

Playlists are constantly playing in my classroom and house. But what are the playlist of our lives? In this piece Abigail takes you through the moves of using writing playlists to create meaningful narratives.

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021Abigail Lund

The Enneagram Meets the ELA Classroom

Ever heard of the Enneagram? How could implementing personality types into ELA help your students better analyze characters and create authentic characters? I take you through some moves in this MW piece

March 4, 2021March 1, 2021Abigail Lund

You’re a Poet.. Didn’t You Know It?

Have you heard of the Important Book? Margaret Wise takes us through a mentor text that will help your students engage in a rich vocabulary centered writing lesson and ask themselves.. what is the most important thing? [Perfect lesson to take writing out of the ELA classroom and into math]

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021Michael Ziegler

Guided by (too many) Voices

It’s funny how a few things in school remain mostly normal despite everything else feeling so strange this year. Like the annual arrival of National Honors Society nominations– it was a nice reminder of “normal” when a student in my Zoom last week asked if we could set up a breakout room so he could […]

January 11, 2021January 7, 2021mrfitzfinkle

Tools Over Rules: Writing as Choice-Making, not Compliance

In fact, students often think of writing as an act of compliance – follow the teacher’s instruction, receive a passing grade.

March 12, 2020March 11, 2020Michael Ziegler

A 3D Model for Voice

One of my favorite things about being part of a community of English teachers both in my building and online (Hi Teacher Twitter Buddies!) is that every once in a while this really fun thing happens where a piece of writing gets published somewhere with really powerful voice or a really fun structure and all […]

December 11, 2019December 10, 2019Jay

Mentor Text Wednesday – The Day It Finally Happens

Mentor Text: ‘The Day The Last Slaughterhouse Closes‘ from The Day It Finally Happens by Mike Pearl Techniques: Presenting Research Using Narrative as an Introduction Attribution Background – I realize that it’s almost stereotypical for an English teacher, and lifelong reader, to go on about the importance and impact of libraries. So, I won’t. Except […]

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 […]

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, […]