What a happy, exciting day it is here at Moving Writers! We’d like to introduce you to our friend and newest regular writer, Stefanie Jochman. Like so many great relationships of our day, we met Stefanie on Twitter. The connection was immediate. She’s a gifted writing teacher, an experimenter, an innovator, and we are thrilled to have […]
Have you read Donald Murray? In my career, I had read a lot about Donald Murray. Tons that was inspired by Donald Murray. Oodles that has flowed out of the legacy of Donald Murray, but I’m ashamed to say that until the last month, I had never read the man himself. Until Penny Kittle told […]
When do English teachers get so lucky as to have a major NBA star validate what we do by announcing his retirement in the form of a poem? This week, Kobe Bryant did just that — he wrote a poem entitled “Dear Basketball” and released it to the media as an announcement of his retirement. […]
Uh oh… My stomach sank, and I could feel the gears inside my head turn on and begin whirring, trying to catch up. Trying to think of the answer. The right answer. Or a good answer. Or any answer. This right here — this is the risk we run when we commit to conferring with […]
So much of the workshop method is built on the desire to mold students into independent writers who will continue to thrive when they leave our classes. By the end of a year in my ninth grade Reading Writing Workshop, I hope that students will have discovered their own unique writing process, they will know […]
I have a hard time narrowing down the list of mentor texts I want to use in each writing study. There always seems to be just one more amazing text that I think can instruct and inspire my students. In Writing With Mentors, Allison and I recommend 3-6 mentor texts as the ideal cluster for […]
In the last three years I have moved from a paper system to an almost exclusively digital system in writing workshop. Finding a good rhythm in a digital environment requires just as much thought as in a paper environment. After a lot of experimentation, I think I’ve landed on a workflow that satisfies my student […]
Grades — good or bad — tend to make us do unproductive things. Each September, when I assess my students’ first piece of writing, processed and polished, leave feedback, and return it to them, one of two things happens: students who did well give a great sigh of relief and check English class off of […]
As publication day approaches, I feel a little anxious. No matter how well the study has gone and how strong the products are, I never know quite what to expect of publication day. Because I sometimes used to skip from one study to the next without setting aside time for sharing and publication, I now […]
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 […]
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