An exploration of how Twitter can provide quick mini-lessons on writing structure.
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Success Through Structure
In January, during Moving Writers’ series on testing, I wrote about structuring a class when there’s that external test to consider. I really like having a structure. It’s nice to have touchstones and routines to ground things so you can go and explore the things that come up as you go. I’m currently teaching a […]
Leaning into Difficult Topics: Toward an Informed Stance
After the Parkland school shooting in February, we witnessed something tangible shift in our discourse about school safety and gun regulation. Nationally, we saw and still see young people like the Parkland student survivors stand up and make their voices heard, including the CNN sponsored town hall with Florida politicians and a coordinated student-led walkout on […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Using Ekphrastic Poetry With Students With Disabilities
Today’s guest post is from Donnie Welch, a poet and teacher out of New York who runs writing workshops specifically for students with developmental disabilities! You can connect with him on Twitter @donniewelchpoet or through his website, http://www.DonnieWelchPoetry.com. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Mentor Text: Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell by Charles Simic Writing Techniques: Ekphrastic Poetry […]
March Museums and Mash-ups: Springtime Experiments in the Classroom
As the daffodils start sprouting near sidewalks and the draft in my apartment warms to where I don’t feel compelled to don a housecoat at all hours and become more of a Rose Nylund than I already am, the longer, sunshiny, pollen-y days give me the itch to experiment. In the last two weeks, my […]
A Micro Writing Unit: Picket Signs
Peeking at Twitter last Wednesday during the school day as teachers and reporters posted pictures of students during the National Walk Out, I couldn’t help but cry. Isn’t that always the way you feel when you are so, so sad and also when you see people you love do something extraordinary? But when I saw […]
Puzzling Through a Movement
We are in the midst of a movement. Not just one about school shootings and the NRA, but also one about literacy. About teaching students to really understand what they’re reading. About arming students with the power to write and speak in meaningful, impactful ways.
Mentor Text Wednesday: A Love Letter to Saga
Mentor Text: A Love Letter to Saga by Laura Sackton (via BookRiot) Strategies: Lit appreciation Media Appreciation Review Criticism Background: Teaching English the way so many of us do winds up highlighting so many great dichotomies that exist in that practice. Write with passion, yet realize that you must do this within constraints sometimes. Read poetry […]
Using Blogging to Grow Independent Writers (or: How to Kick Your Little Birds Out of the Nest)
It’s second semester and my AP Seminar kids are knee-deep in their official Performance Tasks. For those unfamiliar with the AP Capstone program, that means my kids are doing giant, independent research projects and I am required to take a very “hands off” approach. I can give general instructions to the whole class, and I […]
The First Seven Days of a First-Time Workshopper
There are lots of teachers who implement writing workshop in baby steps — maybe first some mini-lessons, and then some conferring down the road, and later expanded choice for students, and next year some mentor texts. And that works! For me, it didn’t, though. I dabbled in workshop for a year before I realized that […]
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