Recap of our Summer 2011 Guest Blogger Series

Labor Day came and went this past Monday.  Nearly every teacher and child I know is back in school.  Therefore, our summer guest blogger series has come to an end.  Next Friday Ruth and I will be blogging on alternating Fridays.  However, I wanted to take a moment to recap all of the guest blog posts we had this summer in case you missed one.  They’re ALL worth reading, as are each of the blogs that each of our guests keep.  Thank you to all everyone who graciously wrote a guest post on Two Writing Teachers during the summer of 2011.

May

• Lisa Dewey Wells of the Wonder of Children Blog wrote entitled Assessment + Writing = Closure.
• Alan Wright of Australia (Yea for the blogosphere bringing educators from all ends of the Earth together!) and the Living Life Twice Blog wrote helped us think about the power of brainstorming.
• Amanda Villagómez, who writes Snapshots of Mrs. V., encouraged us to think deeply about differentiation.

June

• Julie Johnson, author of Raising Readers and Writers, reminded us to take time to reflect.
• Ruth Metcalfe wrote about her the way her writing life changed her teaching life and the work she does with her first graders.
• Lindsay Reyes of Chasing Beauty… in the Classroom encouraged us to end the school year with independence.  (NOTE: She talked a bit about beginning the school year with independent writing projects too.)
• Maureen Ingram taught about the ways she fosters a love of writing in an early childhood setting.

July

• Patrick Allen, who writes All-en-A-Day’s Work, paid tribute to his colleague and longtime writing partner Randi Allison.
• Sarah Mulhern Gross, who has been blogging at The Reading Zone for about as long as we’ve been blogging at TWT, showed us the importance of writing about travel experiences in notebooks.
• Karren Colbert, who blogs at The Write Brained Teacher, wrote a post entitled “Say It Like a Writer.”
• Mary Helen Gensch blogs at Book Savors.  She contributed a post about reading like a writer.
• Caroline Gonzalez is the author of Writing from the Heart.  Her post takes you on a journey across time with one of her former students.

August

• Stella Villalba, author of My World-Mi Mundo, talked about ways to grow writers through author studies.
• Angela Stockman writes the WNY Young Writers’ Studio Blog.  Her blog post was entitled “Self-Advocacy Begins with Reflection.”
• Linda Baie of the TeacherDance Blog got us thinking about starting the school year as writers.
• Tara Smith, a participant in both the annual and the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenges, wrote about the ways she wove slice of life writing into her sixth grade classroom.

September

• Deb Day, who writes the Coffee with Chloe Blog, thought deeply about how she could be a teacher of writers.

Again, a BIG thank you to all of the folks who wrote guest blog posts about all aspects of the teaching of writing this summer!