I miss many things about being a classroom teacher. I miss the camaraderie with the students, the collegiality with the staff, and the sense that what I'm doing really matters. I miss the heartwarming and hilarious things that kids say, and the poignant and eye-opening things that they write. The times of day I miss… Continue reading Tuck Everlasting: 40th Anniversary Blog Tour #Tuck40th
Year: 2015
A Compliment Conference
In my day-to-day teaching I often get swept up in trying to load students up with next step after next step... after next step. Sometimes, what might benefit some students most, however, is clear explicit feedback on what they are already doing well. There's certainly an art to giving clear feedback, especially when it comes to… Continue reading A Compliment Conference
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Join our March SOLSC Welcome Wagon!
The Eighth Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge is just about three weeks away. This will be my fourth Challenge, and although I feel as though I am a somewhat seasoned slicer, I have to admit that writing a SOL everyday still makes me just a bit anxious. When I took part in my first… Continue reading Join our March SOLSC Welcome Wagon!
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All About the Paper.
Sometimes making a small change can produce big results.
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Generating Ideas: Three Strategies from PiBoIdMo
Three strategies to generate story ideas
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Join Our Writing Community!
Calling all educators! Whether you're thinking about joining our writing community or coming back for your eighth March writing challenge, please take a few minutes to read this post. (NOTE: There's a change to the way we're doing prizes this year.)
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SOL Tuesday + a Note About Comments
We would like TWT to stay true to its mission as a place where educators who are passionate about writing can gather inspiration and share ideas. We value your participation and encourage you to comment on all our posts, and especially to comment on each other’s Slice of Life Stories. Please refer to these guidelines when commenting.
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Taking Biography to the Next Level: The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra + An Interview + A Giveaway
If you aren't familiar with this delightful biography of Sun Ra by Chris Raschka, you should be. Learn about the ways that this book is a perfect mentor text, and hear about the writing process from the author.
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Calling All Teachers! Join the Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge!
Calling all teachers and students! Join us for the March Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge!
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ICYMI Aim Higher: Outgrow Old Goals and Set New Ones
Last week Tara, Betsy, Dana, Anna, Stacey and I wrote about the importance of having writing goals for your students: how to set them, how to keep track of them, how to make them visible, and how to make them a part of your daily classroom life. In cased you missed it, here's a round up of our posts.
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Aim Higher: Conferring and Student Goals
So, you've studied your students' writing, analyzing their work for strengths and next steps. Maybe you took home a giant stack of writers notebooks, or a huge pile of on-demand writing assessments, or maybe you've just finished reading their published pieces. Now what?
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Aim Higher: The Rest of the Story
Earlier in the week Anna talked about making goals visible. This is so true. When we make goals visible for students they are able to go back to that visual multiple times and the goal or objective we are aiming for becomes more attainable. With young writers, goals always have to be visible. Young students… Continue reading Aim Higher: The Rest of the Story
