Show of hands… how many people feel that the need to differentiate in your classroom has become more intense? Here at my public high school in New York City, in the Bronx, working with students who are over-aged, under-credited, working with students who’ve had some disruption to their education…the differentiation needs have become overwhelming. What do […]
Tag: reading
6 Ideas to Incorporate Geography in Reading and Writing Lessons
If you are a teacher of writing, you have likely sometimes felt so immersed in a book that you could see the characters walking down the street along by moonlight or hear the sounds of a bustling marketplace. The author’s use of setting details is part of what makes this happen. Setting is more than […]
Books Made for Sticky Notes: Analysis in the Wild
When I read nonfiction, I usually read through two lenses: a reader interested in the topic and a writer interested in the craft. I’m pretty much always on the hunt for those little gems that give both student and teacher writers a glimpse at what writing for authentic audiences and purposes can look like. The […]
Organizing Instructional Time
When it comes to instructional time, what matters most is that we organize our plans around a purpose.
No Unicorns Here: Demystifying the Hard Work of Reading with Mentor Texts
How adopting a mentor text approach to writing instruction is actually helping me teach reading comprehension
Three Things I Believe
A tough start to the school year combined with the launch of a new unit created the perfect storm to force me to put into writing 3 beliefs that drive me as an educator.
Reader Mail: How do you balance writing and reading instruction?
“Would you rather teach only writing or only reading?” The question my husband asked me during a marathon session of Would You Rather (we were driving from Virginia to Maine). “Writing. Hands down.” From the time I was a little girl, I’ve kept diaries, written letters to friends near and far, submitted poems to contests. […]
A Lesson for Tomorrow: Using Art to Teach Repetition in Writing and Reading
Students are great barometers of lesson effectiveness. At the end of each writing workshop genre study, I ask students to reflect on the lessons that had an impact on their thinking and writing. When asked which mini-lesson she found to be the least helpful in our memoir genre study, a student wrote: The mini-lesson I […]
moving writers 