Each morning, my husband and I stumble bleary-eyed toward our espresso machine. His drink is a single shot, the shorter and blacker the better. My drink is an Americano, the taller and milkier the better. He claims his small shot is just the amount he needs to get him going and nothing more, while I prefer… Continue reading Volume Matters
Author: Anna Gratz Cockerille
Anna is a staff developer, literacy coach, and writer, based in New York City. She taught internationally in places such as Sydney, Australia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Auckland, New Zealand in addition to New York before becoming a staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University (TCRWP). She has been an adjunct instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program at Teachers College, and teaches at TCRWP where she helps participants bring strong literacy instruction into their classrooms. Anna recently co-wrote Bringing History to Life with Lucy Calkins, part of the 2013 series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann). She has been a researcher for Lucy Calkins, contributing especially to Pathways to the Common Core (Heinemann, 2012) and Navigating Nonfiction (Heinemann, 2010).
Information Writing: Upping the Ante on Text Features
It's likely that in many writing workshop classrooms, the year is launching with narrative writing. Coming just around the bend, perhaps very soon for teachers who began the school year in early August, is expository writing. The first expository unit may come in the form of any one of a multitude of types of essay units, or perhaps, in… Continue reading Information Writing: Upping the Ante on Text Features
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Beginning a Year of Teaching Writing with Reflection
What goals will you set for your practice this year? Here are a few suggestions.
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It’s Tuesday! Write your Slice. Share your Link. Give your Comments.
Please write your Slice of Life Story, share your link, and give at least 3 comments to other Slicers.
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Table Conferences: An Important Coaching Move at the Start of the Year
Over the summer, we catch up on professional reading, we organize our classrooms, we make plans. In our reading and our planning, we imagine the very best possible scenarios. We see our children working diligently and for long stretches at their writing spots, living writerly lives, generating one powerful idea after another. To be sure, we… Continue reading Table Conferences: An Important Coaching Move at the Start of the Year
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It’s Tuesday! Write your Slice. Share your Link. Give your Comments.
Please write your Slice of Life Story, share your link, and give at least 3 comments to other Slicers.
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Writing History in Many Forms
Want some fresh ways to channel your students to write about history? This post offers some light and fast tips that could easily be turned into weighty and meaningful instruction.
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WRITE. SHARE. GIVE. IT’S SOL TIME.
It's Tuesday - time to share your Slice with the Two Writing Teachers Community. Here is a chart from last week's Teachers College Reading and Writing Project August Writing Institute at Columbia University. It may help you with ideas for topics. Happy Slicing!
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Sharpen Your Workshop Routines: Conferring Best Practices
When we watch experts confer with student writers, we are often stunned at the way in which they seem to pull teaching points out of thin air. Not all of us confer so effortlessly. Preparation, organization, and data collection will each go a long way toward ensuring your conferring is stronger than ever this year.
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A Writing Teacher’s Summer Project: Building a Teaching Toolkit
Looking for a summer project? Spruce up your teaching toolkit.
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Ending a Year of Teaching Writing with a Group Reflection
One thing I love so much about being an educator is the cyclical nature of the school year. The beginning of the year brings promise, renewed energy, and a certain mania. The middle of the year brings familiarity, routine, and structure. The end of the year brings a slower pace, stepping back, reflection. There is… Continue reading Ending a Year of Teaching Writing with a Group Reflection
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A Recipe for a School-wide Writing Celebration
This recipe for a school-wide writing celebration offers one idea for a way to include all students without the anxiety that often comes from presenting in front of a large group. Also, it is easy to prepare and the outcome is delicious!
