Calling all middle school teachers! Today I’m sharing a ready to use set of lessons, resources, and a digital notebook for adolescent readers and writers featuring some of my favorite books in verse.
Category: adolescent literacy
The Quickwrite Handbook, A Review +Giveaway
Linda Rief has collected a treasure of mentor texts and created a guide to encourage you to find your own treasures! Start here, get inspired, and then see what you find when you start looking. It can be as small or big as you want when you begin and Linda gives us all the right tools to get started.
Enlisting Writing Support from Parents
Parents can be a tremendous educational resource. Yet, in middle school it can be challenging, as developmentally our students are beginning to morph from children into young adults. Thinking about next year, I have drafted some ideas for partnering with parents on how to help their kids become stronger writers. How might parents provide support in the way writing workshop teachers believe is most helpful? Here are a few ideas...
Snapshots From the NYSEC Conference
My time at the New York State English Council (NYSEC) Conference through snapshots!
What we learned about writing from an author visit
The first thing I did when I learned that we had access to Google hangout in our classroom, was to schedule an author visit...
Teach the Writer
I wish we could change the world by creating powerful writers forever instead of indifferent writers for school. ---Mem Fox I just want to take a deep breath and read those words again. Exactly. "Powerful writers forever instead of indifferent writers for school." Sigh. This is why I'm thankful for writing workshop. It helps us… Continue reading Teach the Writer
Greater Expectations
Greater Expectations by Robin Turner is an excellent resource for secondary Writing Workshop teachers. As a high school teacher, he shares real life experiences, authentic teaching points, superb advice, and high quality rubrics and units. The subtitle of the book is Teaching Academic Literacy to Underrepresented Students. He offers practical, wise advice for preparing this… Continue reading Greater Expectations
My Life as a Reader.
The first unit of study is coming to a close. The summative assessment is two part. First, students are to create a multimedia presentation (text + image + audio) of their past, present, and future reading lives. (Part two is an on-demand writing, where they summarize their learning about reading + a reflection of this… Continue reading My Life as a Reader.
What Really Matters: This Post Was Inspired by My Amazing Co-Blogger RUTH!
Last summer I took a course at T.C.'s Reading Institute with Kyleene Beers. She gave us a copy of her book Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise Into Practice. As I read parts of it, a section by Chris Crutcher resonated with me. Crutcher tells of a tough girl whose third grade teacher was the only one… Continue reading What Really Matters: This Post Was Inspired by My Amazing Co-Blogger RUTH!
defining book.
Recently my curriculum director gave me the book: Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practiceedited by Kylene Beers, Robert E.Probst, & Linda Rief. (Is my curriculum director awesome, or what?) I am quickly realizing that it is one of those defining books for me. It is all of the top secondary literacy leaders in the field… Continue reading defining book.