I started a practice of nightly, independent writing with my students this year on a whim. (For the record, if you are ever going to start a giant, year-long project with students on a whim, do make sure that the idea came from Nancie Atwell. I think that makes a difference.) And so, since September, […]
Text: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart Audience: Later middle school – high school (Perhaps 7-12?) Book Talk: Every summer, members of the incredibly wealthy Sinclair family gather on a private island. Everything appears to be perfect — perfect children, perfect relationships, plenty of money. But, of course, you know that things are […]
Have you ever considered how many aphorisms there are for good writing? Show, don’t tell. Write what you know. To write well, read. First drafts are crap. Adverbs are the devil. And so on. But there’s one tidy little truth that haunts me over and over and reminds me that my job is not […]
I have inherited a legacy of book reports. Every quarter for eons, students in my school have written book reports. And, for whatever reason, parents in my community are rumored to be enamored with book reports — they are somehow a mark of a rigorous writing curriculum. So, while I work on a grand re-education […]
Today’s snapshot comes from Katie Stuart (@KatieStuart10) who teaches 9th grade English and 11th and 12 grade electives at Windham High School in Windham, NH. She previously taught at Windham Middle School and Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH. She earned her B.A. in English and M.A.T. in Secondary English from the University of New Hampshire. […]
When my PLC revisited our Hot Take writing unit this year, we decided we needed to help students find a balance between voice, style, and evidence.
No matter how much we try, none of us can do it all; there simply aren’t enough hours in the classroom. So, whenever possible, I try to double-dip — pulling the learning from one area of our work to another. And that’s exactly my aim in this new column. To feed our students’ book love, […]
When you need to explore the power of diction and syntax with your students, looking at actual editorial revisions made by professional journalists seems like a great place to start!
I thought I was so clever. I thought I had saved myself some time. Survey says…I was wrong!
Last year, I began to notice a curious but recurring pattern — students’ final papers lacked many of the elements we noticed in the mentor texts. It was as though students had forgotten that we studied the mentor texts for days and days and made grand lists of noticings. It was as though they had […]
moving writers 