June/July Vacation

After what was one of the toughest school years most educators have ever lived through, SUMMER IS HERE! Even though a teacher’s work is never done, the unstructured summer months are a welcome gift for educators. From all of us at Two Writing Teachers, we hope you have ample opportunities to enjoy some downtime in the months to come!

Even though there won’t be any new posts from now until Sunday, August 1st when our next blog series begins, there is plenty to read from our archives as well as so much to look forward to as we start a new school year!

Our Next Blog Series

For the past few months, much of the national narrative has focused on “learning loss.” As educators, we know teachers showed up and instructed kids — in-person, remotely, or with a hybrid approach — during the 2020-21 school year. Students learned last year. Therefore, we are not focusing on “learning loss” in our first blog series of the 2021-22 school year.

On Sunday, August 1st, I will kick off our next blog series, Our Favorite Things, which will seek to be both affirming and inspiring. We want to bring you back to things we love most about workshop… the tried and true things that can be done (again!) during the next school year.

Check Out Our Past Blog Series Posts

As you start to prepare for next year you might find inspiration hiding within our past blog series posts! These series contain a treasure trove of ideas, visuals, and tools to get you on the right path toward a great start as you begin planning your year. Here are some of our past August blog series round-ups (each of which include hyperlinks to topical posts):

August 2014: Sharpen Your Workshop Routines
August 2015: Creating Classroom Environments to Launch the School Year
August 2016: Starting with What Matters Most
August 2017: Writing Workshop Fundamentals
August 2018: Dreaming Big for This Year’s Writing Workshop
August 2019: Nurturing Independence from the Start
August 2020: Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing to Establish Community

SOL Tuesdays

Check in on Tuesdays as Kathleen hosts our weekly call for Slice of Life Stories through the month of July. If you have been thinking about joining, summer is a great time to share your first Slice of Life Story. Simply write your story on your personal blog, share the URL on Tuesday in our comment section, and leave at least three comments for other bloggers.

Voices from the Community

Do you have something you can share with our community of educators? It can be a celebration of something that worked, something you’re grappling with, or something that might push the thinking of teachers and literacy coaches? We’d LOVE to hear from you?