Students need chances to discuss their writing in conferences, but finding the time and stamina to keep them going can be challenging.
Category: Writing Workshop
Making “Writer” a Label Students Can Wear – Three Ideas
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, […]
Finding Writing Time Where Time Doesn’t Exist
With a little bit of creativity and flexibility, you can add more writing time to your classes!
Writer’s Telephone – an Information-Gathering, Idea-Nuturing Strategy
I feel like I’ve been engaged in a pedagogical ancestry project recently — mapping my teaching forebears through generations. In floods of professional books, blogs, Tweets, and chats, these ideals into which I have become so deeply entrenched sometimes lose their original source. Like a game of educational Telephone, the message gets translated and retranslated, […]
Teaching Shakespeare (and Literary Analysis!) with Prompt Books
This April, English teachers, Anglophiles, all buddies of the Bard will commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. Museums, libraries, schools, and theater companies are marking the occasion with special events like the homecoming of the Globe to Globe tour of Hamlet, which will have performed in around 200 countries by the […]
On Teaching a Genre You Know Nothing About (or: an Infographic Study!)
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 […]
Building Writing through Independent Reading Projects – a Follow-Up
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 […]
Sentence Study to Textual Analysis — an Aha! moment
In 2014, I attended Alison and Rebekah’s presentation at NCTE in Washington, DC, and left buzzing about so much of what they shared, especially sentence studies. For reluctant writers like my freshmen, a sentence study is a great way to ease into creative writing or new sentence styles. The thought of writing a paragraph sometimes […]
Revision: A New Kind of Final Exam
Inspired by Rebekah’s decision to quit grading earlier this year, I have been trying to take more risks with assessment in my own classroom. I haven’t gone grade-free quite yet, but I’m looking for more opportunities to involve my students in the assessment process. Since it is end-of-term time for many schools, I thought […]
So, I Quit Grading — Part II Update
This year, I quit grading almost entirely. While I still give quarterly grades (because my students have to have them!), I do not grade individual assignments. I’ve given up traditional grading for many reasons that I explain in my first post on this topic, but the biggest of the reasons is this: I don’t think […]
moving writers 