Chris Prunckle’s Wannabe, a six-panel comic strip, combines artistry and critical review for the perfect writing project.
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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 […]
Books that Move Us: The Revision Toolbox (Georgia Heard)
From revision checklists to quick exercises to suggested talking points for strategic conferences and an appendix replete with graphic organizers, The Revision Toolbox is brimful with use-in-your-classroom-tomorrow ideas. But it also vibrates with inspirational quotes and big ideas.
Mentor Text Wednesday: The Berlanti Opening Monologue
Using American film and tv writer Greg Berlanti’s opening monologue (think Dawson’s Creek, Everwood, Political Animals, Arrow, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow!) to teach everything from characterization to brevity to voice!
Mini Personal Essays a la The Wall Street Journal’s Soapbox Column: An In-Between Study
Students love freestyling on topics like love, jealousy, and truth, so when I discovered The Wall Street Journal’s The Soapbox column, I knew I had landed upon a great mentor text for personal writing.
Mentor Text Wednesday: Rock ‘N Roll Satire
Your students will love rocking out to this satirical mentor text.
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 […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Anthology Inspiration
Using a variety of geeky, awesome pop culture anthologies in our classroom can be the way to our students’ pens––and hearts.
Making Time for Vocabulary Instruction that Matters
Years and years ago, before I had been bitten by the writing workshop bug, I became obsessed with vocabulary instruction. My school used a series of vocabulary workbooks at each grade level, and I had witnessed how that approach didn’t worked. Not for real. Not for the long term. Some students would dutifully memorize the […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Anthology Introductions
Anthologies are mentor text goldmines!
moving writers 