There is so much ugliness in the world. Enough to last us all for a good long while. As I was adjusting my classes this week, I thought, why not beauty? My AP students have been fixated on the weird and wonderful language in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. And frankly, I’m not over it, have […]
Category: #writingwithmentors
Preparing Mini-Lessons that are Intentional
Recently I attended my oldest daughter’s back-to-school orientation in her third grade classroom. It was a typical night of excited cafeteria room chatter, squeaky new sneakers, and the exchange of adorable little kid hugs between reunited playground friends. The loudspeaker chimed in and out, prompting us to move from one location to the next, and […]
Ask Moving Writers: Information Writing That’s NOT “The Research Paper”
Dear Larken, On a recent trip back from Texas, we sat behind a couple of teenagers who were having the most incredibly mature, well-rounded, rich conversation about everything from politics to travel to education. As the plane prepared to land, and their conversation came to a close, the 15-year-old boy said to his new plane […]
How To Reflect: 5 Ways to Encourage Reflection in Your Classroom
Today is an important day, a day all teachers cherish. Graduation. How remarkable to be able to share in this milestone year after year, class after class. What a privilege to take some small part in the upbringing and education of so many wonderful young people moving up and onto the next steps of their […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Say Something Nice
Mentor Texts: The Say Something Nice series at Birth.Movies.Death Writing Techniques: Criticism Counterargument Tone and Voice Background – Our students consume a fair amount of pop culture. They’re able to budget their time in such a way that they’re consuming media at an insane pace, binge watching like mad, and watching everything Netflix has to […]
A Late Night Mentor Text
I’ve written before about lessons inspired by my Twitter feed and it happened again early this week. Sometimes, right when you need it most, the universe drops the perfect mentor text right in your lap. My AP Language students are busy prepping for the exam and all of them need a little more work with […]
10 Ideas for Notebook Time
Recently, my seniors competed in a state-wide writing competition, and to aid in inspiration and help launch their writing process, I presented students with unique and exciting, low stakes writing opportunities. After reading my students’ writing contest pieces, I was reminded once again of the importance of time spent journaling—of the freedom and release of a writer’s […]
How Mentor Texts Engage Secondary Students in Play
We are over at the Heinemann PLC Series this week chatting about mentor texts & discovery . Read — and watch — more here!
4 Ideas: Using Mentor Texts for Literary Analysis
Using mentors to teach literary analysis makes sense. Beginning in elementary school, students are engaged in some form of literary analysis. In fact, my second grade daughter, works out her analytical muscles on the regular. Her (amazing) teacher provides her students with plenty of scaffolding and sentence starters. She coaches them with exercises like I […]
3 Reasons Literary Analysis Must Be Authentic
Hello, friends! Oh, how we have missed you! Allison and I are still in the midst of finishing our new book on teaching analytical writing, but we couldn’t resist a quick check-in with you to share some of what we have been up to! Yesterday we had the great fun of doing an hour of virtual […]
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