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
Category: writing with mentors
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]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Creating a reading life.
Imagine if you will… FADE IN: EXT. HIGH SCHOOL CAMPUS – EVENING It is ‘Back to School Night’ at The American Community School of Abu Dhabi. A crowd mingles about waiting for the bell to signal the first round of 8-speed dating sessions with their child’s teachers. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASSROOM – […]
moving writers 