At NCTE, Allison and I spoke to two different teachers who both shared that they want to use writing workshop in their secondary classrooms but teach in school systems with very specific curricular demands — “You must teach these novels”, and “You must do this many timed writings in response to prompts”, and “You must […]
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“Where Do You Find Mentor Texts? How Do You Select Them?”
We loved seeing so many of our Twitter and blog friends at NCTE this weekend! Yesterday, during our presentation about technique-driven studies, two of the big questions that emerged were: Where do you find mentor texts? How do you select them? Our criteria: To select mentor texts, we begin by visiting our usual haunts (listed […]
NCTE14 Preview: Do Your Student Writers Need Technique Study?
Where does writing workshop go next? Traditionally, writing workshop is organized around genres. We write editorials, learning about the conventions of that genre, incorporating it into pieces of student writing, and then move on to narrative. Then literary analysis. Then, perhaps, a This I Believe essay. And this is great. Genre is important. Students must understand […]
NCTE 2014 : Sneak Preview #1
Rebekah and I are gearing up for NCTE 2014 in just a few weeks! This week’s post is a special preview of our presentation: Moving the Writer: Embracing a Vision for a Technique-Driven Workshop. Here is the description printed in the convention program: What does it take to move the writer and not just the writing? […]
All Writing, All the Time — My Plan for Semester 2
Maternity leave has given me a huge gift — the excuse to teach all writing all the time when I return to school in January. That might sound daunting or boring (writing every day? five days a week?), but for me it’s an enormous mental relief. Let’s be honest: the absolute most challenging part about […]
Whole-Class Writing Studies vs. Individual Writing Studies
Every year I write on my syllabus that students will produce a new piece of work every four weeks. And while I do create units of study that typically span four weeks, students aren’t necessarily finishing a new piece every month. It often takes us longer than planned to move through a study. Holidays and […]
Mentor Text Monday: Engaging Students with HUMANS OF NEW YORK
Mentor Text: Humans of New York — blog and book by Brandon Stanton Also: LIttle Humans —book by Brandon Stanton Writing Techniques: Effective interviewing Fusing images and text Concision & drilling down to the essentials Background: While I’m off, I am dreaming of the mentor texts and units of study that will fill my second […]
Note-taking Possibilities in Writer’s Workshop
I think most of us will agree that we’d like our students to keep a record of the lessons we teach in workshop each day. They need something tangible to look back at as they progress through each study. And in a perfect world, they’d want something to take with them at the end of […]
Writing Instruction When You Aren’t There
I am not at school and won’t be for the next couple of months. Instead, I’m home snuggled up with this: Because of my impending maternity leave, much of my summer planning time was spent pondering a tough question: how do I maintain intentional, quality writing instruction when I’m not there to instruct? This is […]
Notebook Time: What It Is & Why We Do It
Rebekah and I often often tweet ideas for notebook time, and recently many of you have been asking us to explain it and show how it fits into the workshop. Put simply, notebook time is an opportunity for students to play in their notebooks with different ideas, information, and genres. In our classrooms, notebook time […]
moving writers 