Publishing is a big part of writing workshop — whether students publish in Teen Ink or through a writing contest or simply by sitting in the “author’s chair” (something middle and high school students still love, surprisingly) and reading their favorite line. But often the school community, administrators, and parents miss these big moments. They just […]
Happy Holidays, friends! Alas, technology is getting me down today, so you’ll have to accept all my written words instead of a quick tip video this week. Thank you for being brave and carrying on. A few weeks ago, I shared one way of creating a triangle of communication between teacher, parent, and child […]
Sometimes I forget to make space for writers to communicate with me. In the hustle of the day-in-and-day-out, I slip into communicating AT kids instead of communicating WITH kids. One easy way I have found to change this is to make their writing goals super-visible — in the student’s face and in my face all […]
Screencast author’s notes are the perfect way to build a triangle of communication between parents, students, and the teacher! (And on the very, very most practical level, it gives me a class period at my desk to make sure everyone has submitted a best draft on time while students work!) Here are some resources to […]
In my last post, I discussed how a small change I made to the seating in my classroom affected my day-to-day approach to teaching writing. Simply moving students into small groups allowed me to see so many valuable opportunities for collaboration in my instruction. Today, I’m going to talk about the collaborative benefits another small […]
Overview Docs help you communicate with every student in your room, but especially those who need support with copies of notes and those who are chronically absent! They also provide streamlined one-stop communication with administrators, parents, and colleagues. Here you can take a peek at a completed overview document from this school year! And […]
Classroom seating. It’s one of the very first things you consider as a new teacher. How do I want my room arranged? How do I decide which students should sit next to one another? You do some research and you ask other teachers what works for them, and eventually you reluctantly settle on an […]
As is our habit, we are taking the summer away from the blog to read, write, and recharge. We’ll be back in late August with new content, but for the summer, let’s take a journey down memory lane as we visit our ten most-read posts from the previous school year! This semester I’m bringing […]
As is our habit, we are taking the summer away from the blog to read, write, and recharge. We’ll be back in late August with new content, but for the summer, let’s take a journey down memory lane as we visit our ten most-read posts from the previous school year! Successful co-teaching, to me, […]
This semester I’ve been chronicling my first-ever experiment with Genius Hour and its intersection with the regular machinations of our writing workshop. You can catch up on the other posts in this series before diving into this wrap up! ________________________________________________________________________________________ Genius Hour, and the school year, are almost over. My students are writing their final […]
