Last week I participated in a Twitter chat hosted by @TalksWTeachers and this blog’s creators: @AllisonMarchett and @RebekahODell1. It was a fast-paced flurry of awesome ideas and thought-provoking questions, but one question in particular kept me thinking the next day. Allison posed the following question: What do you struggle to teach and how might mentor […]
On Moving Writers and in Writing With Mentors, you get a taste of my classroom and a peek behind the curtain of my planning process. But what you see is only half the story. While I am passionate about writing instruction, it’s only one half of my instruction. I also teach literature — through whole […]
A challenging, fun, and engaging activity using Hamilton as a mentor text for character and theme analysis.
Writing With Mentors has a 9-12 label in the top right corner, but it isn’t only for workshop-centered high school teachers. There is something in this book for every writing teacher who wants to engage students, connect them with the real world of writing, draw direct links between reading and writing instruction, and ratchet up the […]
It was 9:45 on a Thursday night with two weeks left in the school year and I was crying. My eyes welled up as I read a mash-up of Death of a Salesman and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Years after the death of their father, Biff Loman was inviting Happy to join […]
For a few years now, a debate has been simmering in my department about the college application essay: what’s our role? Some of my colleagues think we have an obligation to help the students with this very important piece of writing, and they’re not alone. Many of the school districts around us require all juniors […]
Students have a story to tell. So why not let them tell it as a way in to literature — to walk an idea around to see how far it will go and where else it might lead them.
We owe a lot to Tom Newkirk. Actually, we owe almost everything to Tom Newkirk. This brilliant man has been a leader in our fields for decades, but one cold morning in Boston 2 1/2 years ago he spoke directly to Allison and me through a crowded room. And everything changed. We talk about this […]
Gamestorming a setting adds character to stories. Ideas and examples here.
It is six o’clock on a Saturday night, and I am sitting at my desk in my classroom. The end of the semester is definitely near! While many of you might still have weeks of instruction left on the calendar, I am down to my last week before finals and commencement. My desk is a […]
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