A few posts ago, I wrote about what Beth Rimer calls “Breather Units.” A Breather Unit is a 2-3 week mini-unit in which a teacher engages in something lighter–or perhaps does a bit of review–after a deep and intense unit of study. Inspired by a Graphic Novel Writing unit Rebekah posted to the Moving Writers […]
We all take risks when we need to. In essence, risks allow us to squash the “what ifs,” to feed our curiosity, to discover what’s possible. And of course, they offer us the chance – through trial and error – to strike gold. While there is a time to play it safe and trust what […]
Image via Davide Restivo on http://commons.wikimedia.org While designing a short story unit for my AP English literature students this past August, I was eager to identify stories that acknowledged the environmental challenges that we are currently facing. I’ve always had faith in literature’s ability to help us enter into an imaginative awareness of what others […]
When writers revise in our classrooms, it is vital that they have the guidance and the tools to empower them to do so. Between last spring and this school year, writing teachers have especially turned to a variety of digital tools to find ways to keep the revision process authentic, valuable, and productive. In a […]
A few months after Rebekah and I started Moving Writers in 2015, I knew blogging was something I needed to bring into my classroom. I was undoubtedly behind the curve — lots of teachers I knew were already blogging with students, and every year at NCTE, I circled multiple blogging sessions in my program but […]
It’s the first faculty meeting of the year. A few teachers gather in a corner to show off their new Erin Condrin planners…and as they energetically flip through them, I can see that the first days, weeks, and months are penciled in with big ideas, writing studies, and lesson plans. Then I look down at […]
Every August, when I enter my classroom for the first time I begin in the same way: I open all my cabinets, desk drawers, and shelves, and dump everything out into the middle of the room. Then I begin sorting. I organize, toss, refile, reshelve, donate, upcycle, recycle, declutter, reclutter, etc. You get the […]
Teaching is often a balancing act. We’re constantly balancing, sometimes battling, the seemingly opposing forces of lesson planning vs. grading, eating the cake in the workroom vs. not eating the cake in the workroom, literature study vs. writing study. But why can’t we have our cake and eat it, too? And by cake, I mean writing. […]
Lessons to help students explore their unique and original voices in writing.
Fact: high schoolers love storytime. They love sitting cross-legged on a patch of carpet as the teacher reads a story from a chair, fanning open the pages of the book. When I told them we were having storytime, my ninth graders appeared confused at first, exchanging dubious glances around the room. “Like in elementary school […]
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