Lighten your mental load by placing more agency in your writers’ hands. Here are simple ways to empower your writers and make your life easier.
Author: guestteacher
Clarity, Confidence, and Community: Reimagining PD for Writing Teachers
When I plan this kind of professional development, I picture the mentors who shaped my teaching. I hear their words in the advice I pass on. Confidence matters. So does content knowledge. But the most important piece? A strong net of support and collaboration. Because when teachers feel grounded in their practice—and connected to one another—they’re able to do their best work for young writers.
Writing Cheerleader: A Ready-To-Go Tip
Today’s post from Terje Äkke invites you to think about an inner writing cheerleader and offers a way to play with this idea with young writers.
Harnessing the Strength of “I’m Really Into” Essays: Straight from the Classroom
Discover the transformative power of "I'm Really Into" essays in the aftermath of a school fire. This engaging teaching approach fosters student connection, amplifies voices, and sparks authentic exploration, while offering practical tips for implementation. Experience the joy of learning with this insightful guest blog post.
Teacher (and Student!) Tips for the 2023 Classroom SOLSC
In today's guest post, fifth-grade teacher Erika Victor shares tips for success with the Classroom SOLSC.
Principals can be literacy coaches too!
Building administrators are and should be lead teachers! Although we often get bogged down in the mechanics of running a school, finding moments to reconnect with our own teaching passions is a key part in staying grounded, being a model for the staff, and building relationships with students. For me, writing has always been my passion and therefore I make it a priority to find time to teach, confer, and connect with my community to both share my passion about writing and fuel theirs!
Writing with Wren: Nurturing a Writing Identity
An eight-year-old writer helps her mom reflect on ways that teachers can help to foster the habits and conditions that nurture children who grow up believing that they have words, ideas, and stories worth writing and sharing.
Integrating Social Studies into Reading and Writing Workshops
For Shaista Ashraf, the thought of teaching social studies not just as social studies, but through the minilessons of reading and/or writing workshop was daunting to start. But with some collaboration, sharing of ideas, and a thorough understanding of the units and sessions she taught, it became clear, lucid, and even enjoyable!
Supporting Multimodal Composition in the Writing Workshop: Simple Ways to Begin
In this guest blog post by Angela Stockman, she contends that writing is and always has been multimodal. Check out her ideas for easy ways to begin supporting multimodal composition in your workshop.
Fostering Authorship, Identity, and Agency in the Early Childhood Classroom Through Storytelling
As the storytelling culture is developed in the classroom, children are likely to begin to see themselves as authors and to use their voices in braver ways to share their ideas and who they are with their peers.
Becoming Writers Together: The Joyful Writers’ Club
Carving out space and time for experiences that honor student agency and their diverse writing lives is not only empowering but also gifts them with the habit of writing and the identity as writers. We can write our way through this pandemic, together and emerge as writers.
Composing, Collaborating, Conferring, Conversing: Keeping an Eye on Student Writing During Remote Instruction
Today, TWT is honored to have Jennifer Serravallo as a guest writer, sharing ideas related to student writing during remote instruction.

