Now that we’re into the real throes of the school year, the Moving Writers staff is ready for some professional learning! Here are two upcoming opportunities! NEW! On-Demand Webinar Available NOW! In order for students to learn new words, they need to be curious about words. But that doesn’t always come naturally. In this 45-minute […]
We’re so excited to immediately offer the second session of our series on studying vocabulary through Language Field Guides! (If you missed session 1, Language Field Guide Basics, you can find it here!) In this seven-video learning module, teachers will: – Understand the rationale for teaching root words and word parts – Get suggestions for […]
Last year, I shared a lot about the language field guides I use in my classroom to help students not just memorize (and forget) words but explore words and use them to improve their reading and writing! Here are those posts: Language Exploration That Changes Writers in 30 Minutes per Week Field Guide Entries That […]
This semester, I’m sharing how my students create language field guides to intentionally and systematically explore words in their reading, their writing, and their lives, not just memorize parts of speech and definitions. My first installment shared the basics of choice word field guides, the easiest and most fundamental way we explore words. My second […]
Here’s my first post in this series that will give you some background on Language Field Guides as well the foundation of choice word field guide entries. Language field guides are a place where readers + writers make discoveries about the language they explore. It’s how I approach vocabulary instruction in a way that’s meaningful, […]
In sixteen years of teaching, I have only had less than one handful of students who truly, thoughtfully attended to word choice. It’s gritty and granular — the work of scrutinizing each and every word, turning it over in your mind, considering every other possibility, and landing on the very best word. Few middle or […]
We want our students to be flexible thinkers who can not only survive, but thrive in their explorations beyond our classroom walls. Taking a cue from Google and shifting our vocabulary instruction from defining to exploring is one way to move toward that goal.
Dear Noel (and fellow readers!), In a recent webinar, 2010 National Teacher of the Year Sarah Brown Wessling posited an idea that really rocked my world. It was at once so simple and so profound: Vocabulary is not a task or a thing, it is a literacy practice. Not so much a skill, but a […]
Years and years ago, before I had been bitten by the writing workshop bug, I became obsessed with vocabulary instruction. My school used a series of vocabulary workbooks at each grade level, and I had witnessed how that approach didn’t worked. Not for real. Not for the long term. Some students would dutifully memorize the […]
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