Last Friday, I dismissed my fourth period IB English class early. We simply couldn’t go on. They filed out, sniffling, wiping away tears, heads down. Some were silent and left alone; most found a friend or two and whispered as they left, arms around shoulders. They had just finished sharing their first piece of workshop […]
Tag: high school writing workshop
A Visual Guide to Planning a Writing Study
“You can’t teach writing this way if you’re not organized.” – Donald Graves (Atwell 2014, p. 26). Before I immersed myself and my students in writing workshop life, I heard other teachers say things like, “Oh, writing workshop is organic. The writing happens. It just works.” They advised me that conferences with student writers gave […]
Mentor Texts are for Social Studies, too!
Mentor texts aren’t just for English class. If mentor texts are meant to inspire writing and teach us something about our writing, then they should exist in every genre. And they should exist in every classroom where writing happens. It can be challenging, though, to wrap our heads around mentor texts in the content areas. […]
I’ve found some mentor texts…now what?
You’ve collected some awesome mentor texts to support your writing study. You’ve photocopied them and passed them out. Then what? How do we connect students with mentor texts in a way that will actually help them write? What are the first steps? My students have been immersed in a mentor text writing study for […]
Two Writing Workshop Calls to Action
Hi, friends. We’re back. Our little project is safely in the hands of our publisher, and we are so happy to turn our attention back to the blog. Ever since NCTE, I have been thinking about the challenging realities so many teachers face in their classroom. Not only poverty, not only discipline issues, not only lack […]
Mentor Text Round-Up: Year-End Lists
As I’ve trolled my Twitter feed in the days after Christmas, it seems that everyone is publishing their year-end lists — bests, worsts, most-shockings, favorites. I started thinking about what a fun mini-study this could be, especially when we return to school at the beginning of a new year and the end of a first […]
“Where Do You Find Mentor Texts? How Do You Select Them?”
We loved seeing so many of our Twitter and blog friends at NCTE this weekend! Yesterday, during our presentation about technique-driven studies, two of the big questions that emerged were: Where do you find mentor texts? How do you select them? Our criteria: To select mentor texts, we begin by visiting our usual haunts (listed […]
All Writing, All the Time — My Plan for Semester 2
Maternity leave has given me a huge gift — the excuse to teach all writing all the time when I return to school in January. That might sound daunting or boring (writing every day? five days a week?), but for me it’s an enormous mental relief. Let’s be honest: the absolute most challenging part about […]
Writing Instruction When You Aren’t There
I am not at school and won’t be for the next couple of months. Instead, I’m home snuggled up with this: Because of my impending maternity leave, much of my summer planning time was spent pondering a tough question: how do I maintain intentional, quality writing instruction when I’m not there to instruct? This is […]
What a High School Writing Teacher Can Learn from Preschool Writer’s Workshop
I teach big kids and always have. High schoolers. But since writing instruction is my great teaching passion — and since summer provides few outlets for actual interaction with students — my almost-three-year-old daughter became my student as I subjected her to a summer of preschool writing workshop. How does this endeavor equal summer fun […]
moving writers 