Remember that Family Guy bit where Stewie is begging to get Lois’s attention by doing that lovable and annoying and relentless thing children do? “Lois! Lois! Lois! Lois! Lois! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mama! Mama! Mama! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mummy! Mummy! Mumma! Mumma! Mumma!” Of course, Lois replies, […]
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! We certainly appreciate you, loyal readers, and all you do every single day to do the hardest, most noble, and most wonderful job in the world! Our friends at Heinemann are offering an amazing deal this week — use the code UTEACH to get 30% off your purchase AND free shipping! What better […]
Before mentors texts became the flexible frame onto which I could hang all of my writing instruction, I had nothing to do with all of the cool articles I stumbled across. When I found a piece of writing that connected with my curriculum, I would most often say, “Hey! Cool!”, print it or clip it, […]
Sometimes, no matter how good our routine, we need to shake it up. This is true in exercise; our muscles and our minds need to be surprised occasionally with a new move in order to achieve maximum results. It’s also true in writing. And it’s true in teaching. Sometimes the very thing we need to […]
We had so much fun talking to Anna E. Baldwin (@annaebaldwin), a professor at the University of Montana, about writing workshop, mentor texts, and our new project!
In January, I reviewed Dan Feigelson’s Reading Projects Reimagined, and I was on fire! I couldn’t wait to take the brilliant-yet-simple idea of inviting students to track an idea of personal interest throughout a book. No more prescribed annotations! No more end-of-chapter questions! No more herding students into tightly-constructed pens of thought built on what […]
Last week, we shared our four fundamental beliefs about teaching with mentor texts — beliefs that apply to any students in any classroom, from kindergarten to senior year. We believe that: Real writing is the result of studying real writing Students benefit from studying hot-off-the-presses mentor texts Students need to study multiple mentor texts in […]
Our bookshelves are jammed full with books meant for elementary and middle school teachers. Donald Graves, Nancie Atwell, Georgia Heard, Katie Wood Ray, Ralph Fletcher, the gals at Two Writing Teachers — these are the teachers who have taught us how to teach writing, who continually push us to reconsider what we think we know […]
Thursday is the day we begin our Tweet-a-thon, leading up to the publication of Writing With Mentors on September 3! (You can download a sample and pre-order on Heinemann’s site!) A little fuzzy on the rules of the game? Need a refresher? Here’s the deal: Rules of the Tweet-a-Thon: Between August 20 and September 3, tweet a link […]
For the past ten weeks, we have been sharing some of our most popular posts about mentor texts as we get ready to share our first book, Writing With Mentors, with the world on September 3! (You can order it here or here — an Amazon even gives you a sneak peak inside!) But, it’s one thing for […]
moving writers 