Reaching Your Writers Blog Series

I sometimes feel like I could pluck these words right from the neural substrates of my students. The self doubt. The worry. The fear.

These thoughts could also easily run through the inner pathways of a teacher, seeing writers as unreachable, a maze too challenging to navigate. 

As teachers, we create opportunities for students to rise and meet challenges every day. No challenge is left un-started. No bridge too high and no path too long. Here at Two Writing Teachers, we are celebrating the striving writers in your classroom. We hope to inspire you to stretch yourselves in this week long series dedicated to reaching all your writers. 

Here is what you can look forward to this week:

• Today: Lanny will get us started with an important post dedicated to why writing matters and where it lives across the lives of our students.
• Monday: Kathleen will continue with a post inspired by our writers’ identities and the power they have to share their words and voices. 
• Tuesday: I will share tools that can create entry points for writers who need us to guide them toward the openings while encouraging independence.  
• Wednesday: Stacey’s post focuses on flexible writing environments within a budget so classroom spaces meet the needs of all writers. 
• Thursday: Kelsey will make clear the difference between equity and equality and their place in the writing classroom. 
• Friday: Beth will show us multiple paper choices and the importance they can have on a striving writer’s success (even for older students).
• Saturday: Marina’s post will explain the importance of creating transitions within our writing workshop that become more like rituals with clarity and focus.
• Sunday: Melanie will share important tips on how and why communication and collaboration are essential to reaching our writers each day.

In the past, we have concluded each blog series at Two Writing Teachers with a Twitter Chat. Going forward, we’ve decided to encourage our readers to engage in conversations with the co-authors, other readers, and their colleagues across the week. We hope to reignite the fundamental communication that exists within our blogging community. Rather than structuring an event not all can attend, we are encouraging our readers to join in the comment section of our posts, start their own conversations on Twitter, and ask questions of our co-authors. We hope this allows more of you to engage in the content and share your thinking, learning, and wonders throughout the week. 

For the giveaway this month we are featuring our very own Melanie Meehan’s new book, Every Child Can Write published by Corwin Publishing. We are so excited for Melanie and thrilled to feature her book as our giveaway following this blog series. 

See the giveaway information below!

• This giveaway is for a copy of Every Child Can Write by Melanie  Meehan. Thanks to Corwin Publishers for donating a copy of each of these books — one book for a primary educator and one book for a secondary educator. (You must have a U.S. mailing address to win a print copy of this book.)
• For a chance to win this copy of  Every Child Can Write, please leave a comment about this or any blog post in this blog series by Sunday, November 17th at 6:00 p.m. EST. I will use a random number generator to pick the winner’s commenter number. Their name will be announced in the ICYMI blog post for this series on Monday, November 20th.
• Please leave a valid e-mail address when you post your comment so I can contact you to obtain your mailing address if you win.  From there, our contact at Stenhouse will ship the book to you. (NOTE: Your e-mail address will not be published online if you leave it in the e-mail field only.)
• If you are the winner of the book, I will email you with the subject line of TWO WRITING TEACHERS – EVERY CHILD CAN WRITE  within five days of receipt. A new winner will be chosen if a response isn’t received within five days of the giveaway announcement.