Ever heard of the Enneagram? How could implementing personality types into ELA help your students better analyze characters and create authentic characters? I take you through some moves in this MW piece
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Poetry and Picture Books (for big kids – and grownups, too!)
My beat this year is about taking care of the grownups, and well, this year that’s turning out to be even more of a monumental task than I could have imagined it would be. It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot that I can say about professional learning that would even scratch the surface of […]
Beginning the Action Plan: Using YA Literature to Ignite Student Passion for Research
Image via Pixabay In my last post, I discussed a new approach I am taking to research writing this year. Instead of the traditional essay, I opted to go with a semester-long exploration of a social justice issue through multiple angles, with a research component being one of those angles. To review, Hope Kasten, my […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Dystopian Short Stories
Mentor Text: Various dystopian short stories Techniques: Social commentary Short story Background – I think I’ve shared this here before, but I teach all my core English courses thematically. There are many reasons for this, but at the heart of it, I love that it gives us a focus for our looks at literature. Each course […]
The Stakes of the Story: Learning from Tommy Orange
When I was a drama student in high school, a theater teacher offered this important reminder as we choreographed stage blocking for a scene: “Every story has stakes.” These words were intended as a helpful cue to all the actors on the stage – to focus on conveying the risks involved as a character made […]
What Went Right?
I write this post coming off of a “grading high.” Assessing student work does not always leave me feeling cheerful and refreshed. There are times it leaves me feeling discouraged and plagued with questions: “What went wrong? How did so many of my students miss the mark on this skill?” But as we race into […]
Talking to Teachers: Finding Time to ‘Write Beside Them’ and Confer (in an IB Classroom) (during a pandemic)
This is a follow-up conversation with Matt Foss, the IB Language and Literature teacher from the American Community School of Abu Dhabi. I spoke with Matt in a previous post where he focused on three main topics: (1) writing beside his students, (2) how remote learning has shifted how he confers, and (3) his goal […]
Single Skill Revision
In my last Moving Writers post, Shokunin as Revision, I equated the revision process to the elements of artisan work. One of those elements was taking small steps for gradual growth. A great reminder on maximizing the effectiveness of a writing conference with students? Focus on just one skill and one skill only. It is […]
Turning the Page on Writing Conferences…with Reading Conferences
Some thoughts on why I always establish reading conferring in order to prepare students to confer about writing.
Conferring With Writers Who Don’t Know They’re Writers
I have not always identified as a writer. As a child, I was an aspiring writer for sure–I was going to be the next Ann M. Martin….but make it historical. Maybe Babysitters in Bonnets? I’ll admit it needed workshopping. Somewhere in high school, though, I shifted and I became an incredibly efficient student of writing–not […]
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