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 […]
Recently …
The Power of Reading Work Out Loud: A Culminating Project for Poetry Study
A few weeks ago, I blogged about different ways writers can share and publish their work in the classroom. In today’s post, I zoom in on one of those options: creating an audio recording of a piece of writing. “Here, try it,” I said, nudging the fluency phone towards Cameron, a 9th grade writer. “I […]
Writing With Mentors Book Signing at NCTE15
We hope that we are going to get to meet you at NCTE15 in Minneapolis next week! We will be signing copies of Writing With Mentors at the Heinemann Booth (#832) at 11am on Saturday! We would LOVE to meet you! Please come see us!
Archives of #teachwriting chat — Analytical Writing
We had a wonderful time last night chatting about analytical writing! Here are the questions we considered together: The conversation was fast and furious, chock full of brilliant ideas for engaging students with analytical thinking and writing! Missed it? Need to go back to take notes? You can read the full archives here!
Build Writing Independence with a Digital Menu of Mini-Lessons
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 […]
#teachwriting Chat, Tuesday, 11/3 @ 9pm EST — Teaching Analytical Writing
On Tuesday night (11/3, 9pm EST), Allison and I will be hosting #teachwriting chat. We’ll be thinking about the challenges, the necessary skills, the authentic products, and (of course) the mentor texts in teaching analytical writing. Here are the questions: We hope you’ll join us for a thought-provoking conversation that impacts every writing classroom!
Teaching Grammar a Few Craft Moves at a Time
As teachers, we’re always thinking of ways to make grammar less scary for students. Most students would say that grammar is a set of rules, so we have to work hard to undo this restrictive thinking and help them see grammar as a series of possibilities rather than limitations. Recently I have said to my […]
Write a review, WIN a CUSTOM mentor text cluster!
Now that Writing with Mentors is in your hands, we’d love to hear from you! Between now and November 15, write a review of the book and post it to our book page on Amazon for a chance to WIN a CUSTOM cluster of mentor texts for you and your students! Your review will enter […]
Flipping Mentor Text Instruction Using Genius
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 […]
Writing Workshop Workflow: A System for Tracking Student Progress in Workshop
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 […]
moving writers 