“The river’s rhythm runs through my veins. Runs through my people’s veins.” My student unmutes herself in our video conference, identifying these two lines as her favorite in Carole Lindstrom’s We Are Water Protectors. The day before, I had read the book aloud to my students, enjoying the novelty of holding the pages close to […]
It’s true: six years ago, we wrote another book on mentor texts. So, you might be wondering: what’s new in A Teacher’s Guide to Mentor Texts? How is it different? What will you find there? The answer? SO, so very much. I made a quick little video tour to show you some of our favorite […]
Despite all that the pandemic has stolen from us, it has given us a few things too. I’m sure that over the course of the last thirteen months, everyone can relate a story of a connection they have restored thanks to the speed of technology and the slowdown that coping with COVID has imposed. Through […]
Our newest book, A Teacher’s Guide to Mentor Texts, 6-12, comes out in just two weeks! For a limited time, you can get 40% off the list price by pre-ordering and entering the code MENTOR at checkout! And if you pre-order, we’d love to have you join our book club! Just email us your payment […]
One of the most common genres we ask secondary students to write is the argumentative essay (thanks, Common Core!). State tests ask for it, ACT and SAT, the AP tests…it’s everywhere. In the last fifteen years or so, I think we’ve all done a pretty solid job of prepping students for that type of writing […]
I kept trying to get better at giving students more independent writing time and ensure I conferred with every student every day. Yet, my ELLs continued to struggle in both their language proficiency and productivity. They wrote the least number of pieces every year.
Here’s my first post in this series that will give you some background on Language Field Guides as well the foundation of choice word field guide entries. Language field guides are a place where readers + writers make discoveries about the language they explore. It’s how I approach vocabulary instruction in a way that’s meaningful, […]
We often give them common prompts, or common texts sets with common prompts. We give them common pieces of literature to write about. So why not a common experience?
Teaching writing, at first, was a struggle for me. It was a struggle because the kids seemed to detest it. When I asked them why I received all sorts of answers, but one answer that kept coming up was that they didn’t feel like the writing was “real”; they turned in all their writing to […]
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
moving writers 