Source If you teach a tested subject like me, February seems to be the month that everyone starts becoming “invested” in what you are doing in the classroom and how it is preparing our students to pass their TEST. This time of year students are taking “field tests” and “benchmark tests” in addition to […]
Questioning strategies are a passion of mine. I’ve been doing some research into what academics call dialogic talk and what teachers call questioning for the better part of 25 years. Thinking about your classroom, I want you to consider the layered and nuanced dimensions purposeful questioning can take in your classroom. First-Write Them Down Do […]
Long after I had moved to a workshop-style classroom, I couldn’t shake a very typical writing-class problem: kids didn’t write. Well, they did, but they still didn’t write until the very last minute, procrastinating and frozen until the assignment was due. Sure, I’d dutifully teach mini-lessons, but then, instead of writing, students would stare, doodle, […]
When students do not think through the point of entry into their story, they pick the first thing that occurs to them, and this almost always means that the memoir gets narrated chronologically; any potential for flashbacks or other transitions in time is unexplored.
Source Christmas is my favorite season. I love this time of year because I pride myself on being a great gift giver. There is no greater satisfaction in life than watching my loved one open their gift and the look of surprise, mixed with confusion wash over their face as they look up at me […]
by Kelly E. Tumy It’s my birthday today, so I thought I’d post one of the most favorite lessons I taught-ever! It really started out not as a lesson, so let me explain. I do love poetry; it took me a while to develop a good way to teach it to any grade level, though. […]
Honoring the in-between–those stretches of time between reading a story and writing about it–requires respect for how idea inspiration may arise. Conditions that advance the writing life involve elements that nurture the “seeds”: nurture prewriting time. Soil: space and time rituals for turning over the memory fossils in the ground. Air: room to let the […]
The excitement of the holidays thrums through our hallways and all of the festive delight creates a unique frenetic energy that is a joy to be around. Teachers, however, will attest to the difficulty in harnessing this energy into focused writer workshops, especially when December also means state testing, late-night choir and orchestra concerts, the […]
Happy Thanksgiving, Moving Writers family! We are especially thankful for you this holiday season — not only your support of our work here, but, more importantly, your constant support of students in the classroom! As we move full-throttle into the holiday season, we have a number of new PD opportunities, including special options to gift […]
Nancie Atwell calls theme “the chilliest mind Popsicle” of all the writing lessons that young writers need to learn, and I couldn’t agree more. (Atwell, 2015, 101) Theme is one of the toughest lessons I have had to learn to teach in both reading and writing and by the time I did, I not only […]
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