(See what I did there?) “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I […]
I’ll admit: I’m a sucker for beautiful notebook work. I will tell students that the quality of the thinking is really what matters — and I mean it. But I also swoon when I see gorgeous notebook pages. I associate gorgeous “two-page spreads” with Penny Kittle and the thinking she has been sharing with teachers […]
With one month left in the school year and just a few weeks remaining before my IB seniors take their exam, we are nearing the end of our independent studies, and I am excited by the results of this experiment! Earlier this week, students gathered in small discussion groups to talk about their independent study […]
Catch up on the whole mini-mentors series! Mini-Mentors for Review Writing, Prompt-Based Writing, and Revision! In the previous iterations of this series, I’ve suggested some ways you might use these mini-mentors in your own classroom: as sentence study warm-ups, as whole-class lessons, in small-group and individual writing conferences. But, you’ll notice something different and special […]
Last month, I introduced two new means of reflection–a set of brainstorming questions inspired by Reading with Presence and a “poetry prescription” activity–that I hoped to implement in the weeks that followed. Today, I’m here with an update. Readers, they worked! The poem analysis letters inspired by The Paris Review’s “Poetry Rx” column were full […]
This months beat Abigail takes you through a Remix using “dating profiles” Students create matches which allow for students to deepen their understanding of characterization, comparing/contrasting, and creating an engaging writing lesson. This one really can expand any content area.
In last month’s post on Moving Writers, I shared how some simple poetry writing helped students tease out a theme in their reading. Crafting poetry can also help students dig deeper into details they later incorporate in the heart of their writing. Prewriting with poetry can give literary analysis essays a pulse. While waiting in line […]
We are delighted to share a guest post today from middle school teacher Elizabeth Oosterheert. You might remember her from a post earlier this year! You can connect with her on Twitter @oosterheerte. Ah, spring. It’s that vibrant time when my “garden” of students begins to blossom beautifully, and the seeds planted earlier in the […]
Hello, friends! Oh, how we have missed you! Allison and I are still in the midst of finishing our new book on teaching analytical writing, but we couldn’t resist a quick check-in with you to share some of what we have been up to! Yesterday we had the great fun of doing an hour of virtual […]
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 […]
moving writers 