T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruellest month.” Sadly, this observation rings true for many students. I don’t know what it is about April, but it seems to bring on the stress, boredom, and lack of motivation that one would normally associate with months like December and February. The guidance counselor at our school recently […]
Recently …
Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts
Coming in September! (Are we the luckiest girls in the world, or what?)
Writing Workshop Transforms Literary Analysis, Too
Last Friday, I dismissed my fourth period IB English class early. We simply couldn’t go on. They filed out, sniffling, wiping away tears, heads down. Some were silent and left alone; most found a friend or two and whispered as they left, arms around shoulders. They had just finished sharing their first piece of workshop […]
A Genre Mini-Study Perfect for April
With Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter, and the advent of spring, greeting cards are abound in our house. Perhaps most exciting of all are the blue cards with storks and animals that continue to show up in anticipation of our first baby’s arrival in early May! All of these cards, lined up along the sill above our kitchen sink, got […]
Writing Conference Road-Show (or Small Conferences with Big Payouts)
Writing conferences used to scare me. Big time. In fact, for me, it was the most-dreaded element of reading and writing workshop. How would I even start? What would I say if the student had a question I couldn’t easily answer? Would the other students really be working while I moved around the room discussing […]
Reading and Writing Workshop: The Essentials of Getting Organized
I found Rebekah’s visual guide to planning for writing workshop tremendously helpful, and I know many of you did, too. In an effort to be transparent and share the systems that work for us, this week I am going to write a little bit about the various organizational tools that help my workshops run more smoothly […]
A Visual Guide to Planning a Writing Study
“You can’t teach writing this way if you’re not organized.” – Donald Graves (Atwell 2014, p. 26). Before I immersed myself and my students in writing workshop life, I heard other teachers say things like, “Oh, writing workshop is organic. The writing happens. It just works.” They advised me that conferences with student writers gave […]
Sequencing and Scaffolding Writing Studies
Whether you work with students for two years or are searching for an effective way to organize writing instruction in your classroom, you have no doubt thought about sequencing your writing studies so they build on one another. This year I have the privilege of teaching a group of 8th graders whom I will also […]
#engchat: March 16
In an age of standards, how can teachers bring the creativity and vitality of a writing workshop into the secondary classroom? How can teachers devote meaningful, consistent time to writing instruction while balancing the demands of literature study, independent reading, test preparation, and a standardized curriculum? For the #engchat conversation on 3/16/15 (at 7 PM EST), […]
Questions to Help You Choose Mentor Texts
Do you remember Captain’s Choice? Those moments standing on the field during gym class as the boys and girls carefully selected players for their teams? We can still see their eyes darting back and forth as they sized up their potential teammates. For some of them it was – and still is – serious business. […]
