Author: Tara Smith

I teach Writing Workshop, Language Arts and Social Studies to sixth graders at a middle school in suburban New Jersey. This blog is my attempt to capture all the "stuff" that goes into my teaching life - the planning, the dreaming, the reading, the preparing, the hoping and (above all) the kids. Please note that the content of this blog is my own. It does not reflect the opinions of my employer.
Video Writing Prompts: Keeping kids engaged in those “between units and right before vacation days.”
writing workshop

Video Writing Prompts: Keeping kids engaged in those “between units and right before vacation days.”

Tara Smith6 Comments

It’s that time of year in many of our classrooms: that restless  time between Thanksgiving break and winter recess.  I mark my kids “present” every day, but I know that most of them are, in fact, many miles away - dreaming of festivities, skiing, vacations, and lazy days in pajamas.  Every day seems to be… Continue reading Video Writing Prompts: Keeping kids engaged in those “between units and right before vacation days.”

WRITE, SHARE, GIVE: SOLS TIME
slice of life

WRITE, SHARE, GIVE: SOLS TIME

Tara Smith86 Comments

Just before we left for our Thanksgiving break, a fellow teacher I’d been trying to persuade to join our Slice of Life community emailed me to say that she’d finally got her blog up and was really excited about writing a slice of life every Tuesday.  It was going to be her New Year’s resolution.… Continue reading WRITE, SHARE, GIVE: SOLS TIME

writing · writing workshop

Reflections on writing workshop: Sometimes when they say they’re “done” they’re really done

Tara Smith7 Comments

  copyright: Bill Watterson - Calvin and Hobbes This is pretty much how Josh felt when I pulled my conferring stool up next to his desk yesterday and asked, "So, how's it going?"  He had been working on his memoir for the past week, and making very slow progress.  Most of our writing workshop class… Continue reading Reflections on writing workshop: Sometimes when they say they’re “done” they’re really done

Nourishing the writer in the writing teacher.
writing · writing workshop

Nourishing the writer in the writing teacher.

Tara Smith11 Comments

All week long, Heinemann Publishing has been celebrating  Don Graves on their Facebook page, featuring his groundbreaking  work, and asking educators this question: To honor Don Graves, help us keep his legacy alive. Tell us your story. What inspires your teaching?   And, all week long, educators like Nancie Atwell and Mary Ellen Giacobbe have… Continue reading Nourishing the writer in the writing teacher.

writing workshop

Close reading leads to close writing: “Falling in Love With Close Reading” in writing workshop

Tara Smith9 Comments

 I have truly fallen in love with Falling in Love With Close Reading, the just-released book by Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts.      As with Kylene Beers and Robert Probst’s Notice and Note, this is a book that pushes my thinking about reading - my own, as well as that of my plot-crazy students… Continue reading Close reading leads to close writing: “Falling in Love With Close Reading” in writing workshop

Tailoring Our Teaching: Stretching our gifted writers
Tailoring Our Teaching Blog Series · writing workshop

Tailoring Our Teaching: Stretching our gifted writers

Tara Smith12 Comments

     Every year, I have one or two writers who arrive at my sixth grade writing workshop door fully formed: they love to write, they write beautifully, and they write well across many genres.  While some of  their classmates struggle with everything from generating ideas to the nitty gritties of punctuation and paragraphing, these… Continue reading Tailoring Our Teaching: Stretching our gifted writers

memoir · writing workshop

Teaching memoir: Views from sixth and seventh grade

Tara Smith6 Comments

Moving from personal narrative to memoir presents challenges and rewards for sixth and seventh graders - they are working with a very familiar genre (they’ve been writing personal narratives since kindergarten, after all), and yet memoir requires digging deep and working hard to create something entirely different.  The rewards are quite wonderful, however, for in… Continue reading Teaching memoir: Views from sixth and seventh grade

Katherine Bomer · memoir · mentor texts

Three “just right” texts to investigate the craft of memoir.

Tara Smith11 Comments

I love our writing workshop shift  from personal narrative to memoir.  It comes at the perfect time of year: our notebooks have filled up with writing lists and entries, our weekly slice of life writing has opened us to new writing possibilities, and we have grown into a writing community ready, willing, and able to… Continue reading Three “just right” texts to investigate the craft of memoir.

assessment · slice of life · writing workshop

Slice of Life in the classroom: How to rubric and grade our project

Tara Smith14 Comments

Launching our yearlong Slice of Life writing challenge is an exhilarating experience for my sixth graders. None of them have done any type of digital writing, and the very idea of posting a slice, seeing it “go public,” and then watching as classmates comment and compliment their writing is, as one of my kiddos put… Continue reading Slice of Life in the classroom: How to rubric and grade our project

Introduction: Tara Smith
new co-author introduction

Introduction: Tara Smith

Tara Smith35 Comments

Dear TWT readers, Thank you for the warm and enthusiastic welcome we received when Stacey announced the new TWT team on Friday.  I am so excited to be a part of this group of marvelous educators, and especially honored at Stacey’s invitation to come on board, since TWT was the inspiration for me to create… Continue reading Introduction: Tara Smith