March 25, 2025 The college entrance essay: Should we teach it or shouldn’t we? This year, the guidance department of our high school, New Directions Secondary School in the Bronx, NY, asked me if I could teach a unit on the college entrance essay in our Juniors English class. In my career, the college entrance […]
I heard Dance Monkey for the first time after watching the NYT analysis. My response was limited to “catchy and cool”. All my mentor texts are new to my ELLs and they read them for the first time when I bring them to class. Their response is similarly limited to “nice and good”.
This month Abigail shares 4 things you can do this next week to spark joy in your writing class. Hope you feel inspired and that the spark would be ignited.
(See what I did there?) “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I […]
In this summer’s beat Abigail takes you through two strategies that you can discover in Liz Prather’s new book “The Confidence to Write”… two strategies to start the school year off right and a great starting place for teacher growth this summer.
One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is getting students to feel connected to history. To them, especially at the middle school age, history might as well be the Milky Way– kids are told that it’s real and that they are a part of it, but the scope of history often has such galactical […]
A few posts ago, I wrote about what Beth Rimer calls “Breather Units.” A Breather Unit is a 2-3 week mini-unit in which a teacher engages in something lighter–or perhaps does a bit of review–after a deep and intense unit of study. Inspired by a Graphic Novel Writing unit Rebekah posted to the Moving Writers […]
This month @mrsablund takes you through the mentor our students know best… social media. How can we use this in our classrooms as writers? Read to find out!
This month Abigail takes you through 5 steps to start stop motion in your writing class. Jump into the wonderful world of stop motion!
This month Abigail takes you through 3 quick ways to jumpstart your writing. If you need a February pick me up.. this is for you.
moving writers 