No matter who you ask, most writing teachers will say that what they need more of in their workshops is exactly what they need more of in life: Just. More. Time. I personally spend a lot of time thinking about how to find writing time where time doesn’t exist, how to add minutes back into […]
Mentor Texts: All 115 of Taylor Swift’s Songs, Ranked by Rob Sheffield School Days and Parisian Nightsuits: Every ‘Freaks and Geeks’ Episode, Ranked by Jennifer Wood Writing Techniques: Criticism Considering Appropriate Length Recognizing good writing Background: One of this week’s mentor texts was a total must read for me based upon the subject material. […]
Last week I started the year with my AP Seminar students talking about perspectives: our own, those of others, and the ones forgotten or ignored in texts. Much of the success of their research will be dependent on their ability to see issues from multiple perspectives. Imagine my excitement then, when this popped up in […]
This year, I am teaching two new grades in a new classroom in a new school with new colleagues and a new schedule. And with all that comes the delightful insecurity that comes with every new school year to some degree — the feeling that I’ve never taught anyone anything before, the fear that I […]
If you’re a regular visitor to Moving Writers, you’ve seen the Behind The Scenes series of posts throughout September related to organizing the year. Earlier, throughout August, the Ask Moving Writers series had this team sharing answers to readers’ questions. I have an obvious bias, but what a wonderful thing to have a community of […]
As any writing teacher knows, one of the hardest things about teaching writing is getting meaningful feedback to students. And in a writing workshop model where students are constantly writing, the task can be even more daunting. But as Kelly Gallagher has reminded us, our kids need to write much more than we can grade. […]
Today’s Mentor Text Wednesday post comes from Amy Estersohn, a middle school English teacher in New York. She blogs over at teachingtransition.wordpress.com and tweets @HMX_MSE. Mentor Text: “We don’t make princesses in those colours” by Nicola Yoon in The Guardian Writing Techniques: Structure Craft Genre mixing Background: The Guardian is one of my favorite online magazines for […]
I’ve just moved to a new city, and with a move comes lots of conversations with strangers, small talk with new people who I hope against hope might become new friends. Inevitably, that small talk turns to work, and when I tell those potential new friends that I teach high school, inevitably someone in the […]
A few months after Rebekah and I started Moving Writers in 2015, I knew blogging was something I needed to bring into my classroom. I was undoubtedly behind the curve — lots of teachers I knew were already blogging with students, and every year at NCTE, I circled multiple blogging sessions in my program but […]
When it comes to instructional time, what matters most is that we organize our plans around a purpose.
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