Narrative Journalism provides a robust genre to help your students explore voice and strengthen their narrative and informational writings skills.
Recently …
Planning
As I write this, I’m in my last full week of classes in the first semester of the year. The exam is written, and copied, sitting in a drawer. My students are putting the finishing touches on the last of their work. And my head is pretty firmly a few days ahead in second semester. […]
Poetry Moves the Writer
Last week, I learned what it means to “move the writer.” My AP Literature students are in the middle of a heavy duty poetry study, and I’ve tried to honor their requests for what activities might best help them tackle Poetry-with-a-capital-P. So far, students have studied plenty of classics and rites of passage poems, they’ve […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: My Three Go-To Personal Essays
Today’s guest blogger, Christina Gil has written for Moving Writers before. You can read her post about using satire writing as a tool for self-discovery here. Christina is a veteran high school English teacher who recently left the classroom to follow a dream and move her family to an ecovillage in rural Missouri. Mentor texts: “Fish Cheeks” […]
March (Madness) to Determine Significance
March Madness March is still two months away, but that didn’t stop my students from facing off March Madness style as we reviewed Lord of the Flies last week. One of the challenges students often face when writing literary analysis is that writing literary analysis asks students to demonstrate two important but distinctly different things: […]
Mentor Text Wednesday: Eulogy
Mentor Text: 10 Inspiring,Confusing and Humorous Eulogies of the Famous via The Atlantic Writing Techniques: Specific Form Considering Audience Background: This is actually a post that should be subtitled “What I’ll Do Better Next Time” My Grade 11 students are in their final weeks of classes, and we’ve been working on MultiGenre Projects based upon research […]
From Babylon to New Hampshire: Tiny Writing Lives Large
Today’s guest post is from Elizabeth Oosterheert (@oosterheerte). Elizabeth currently teaches middle school language arts and directs the 8th Grade Theatre Troupe at Pella Christian Grade School in Pella, Iowa. She enjoys leading sectionals on young adult literature and writing workshop at the Iowa Reading Conference and the Heartland Teacher Convention. Her passions are writing beside […]
The Chanie Project
I’ve written about this before, but this year, Gord Downie, of The Tragically Hip fame has had an impact in my classroom. Long story short, The Hip is largely considered to be Canada’s official band. Their songs, with Downie’s lyrics, are frequently poetic ruminations on our country and identity. In May of last year, Downie […]
The Quest to Reduce Text
In August, I gave myself permission to leave walls blank to make way for instruction. Halfway through the school year, I’m checking back in on that work.
A 24-Hour Play, a 365-Day Inspiration
“Take a line; take a prop; write a play!”: these are the three commands of The MadCap 24-hour Play Festival, a theatrical fundraiser held at a coffee shop and performance space in my hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Last weekend I followed those commands to write my third play for the festival. My “madcap” experience has inspired some new […]
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