In Abigail’s final post of the year she walks you through an end of the year reflection activity which could be done in any class/grade level. End the year with filling your classroom with words.
Tag: featured
A Systematic, Realistic, No-Worksheet Approach to Teaching Articles (a, an, the) to ELLs
This ready-to-use mini grammar unit aims to provide a framework for the student to systematically learn and use articles in their spoken and written English. Slides included.
The Time Capsule Narrative
In Sharon Olds’ poem “Ode to Dirt,” the speaker opens with an apology, explaining I thought you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals. Thinking about parts of nature in isolation from other parts is an all too familiar tendency. The act of overlooking the role of soil […]
Explosion, 2021: A Post-In-Verse
I have bent under the weight
of it all and
I am yet
unbroken.
Front-loading the Writing Process: Reducing the Cognitive Load
Picasso’s quote may seem somewhat contradictory as giving answers is not necessarily a useless trait; however, dig a little deeper and it makes a lot of sense. Computers (or rather Google) give us the answers we are looking for — we receive an output for a question asked. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing — […]
Identity Synthesis: Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Revision
This year in my school district, my colleagues and I have held rich and ongoing conversations about ways to be more culturally and historically responsive in our curriculum and instruction. Within these conversations, we discovered that part of being more responsive in these matters involves valuing our students’ sense of identity in their learning. In […]
Discovering Students’ OWN Language through Field Guides
This semester, I’m sharing how my students create language field guides to intentionally and systematically explore words in their reading, their writing, and their lives, not just memorize parts of speech and definitions. My first installment shared the basics of choice word field guides, the easiest and most fundamental way we explore words. My second […]
Playlist of Your Life
Playlists are constantly playing in my classroom and house. But what are the playlist of our lives? In this piece Abigail takes you through the moves of using writing playlists to create meaningful narratives.
A Framework for Inclusive Unit Plans
“..most long term plans address curriculum, a few good ones address pedagogy; but, most don’t address the single most important data point: what we know and don’t know about ourselves and our students.”
The World’s Most Boring Topics
I tell them that just as a good standup comedian can read out of the phone book and make it funny, a good writer can take a dull topic and make it interesting.
moving writers 