back to school · community · Our Favorite Things Blog Series

Creating Community: Our Favorite Things

One of my favorite things about writing workshop is building a strong community of learners. Today's post highlights some of my favorite ways to create community in my third grade class. How do you define community? How do you build community in your writing workshop? Be sure to leave a comment for the chance to win the giveaway!

community · gifted education · Joy

“I Feel Like a Real Writer:” Supporting Gifted Students in Writing

Teaching writing to gifted students isn’t the smooth, easy path some might suppose. Gifted kids often present a range of academic and affective needs. How can we encourage joyful and confident writing in this special population?

antiracist · community · current events

Standing Against Hate

Today and every day, Two Writing Teachers stands with the AAPI community.

choice · community · Distance Learning · Freewriting · guest blogger · Voices from the Community · writing workshop

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.

community · current events · politics

The Storming of the Capitol

In response to today's events at the U.S. Capitol, our team would like to share some thoughts with you as you prepare for tomorrow with students.

classroom environment · collecting · community · COVID-19 · engagement · flexible seating · independent writing · motivation

Three Ways to Find Joy & Keep Writing

We are now entering week seven in our school district. At the start of the year, there was much to think about and much to worry about.  There were many questions to be answered and all of them seemed continuously uncertain. “We don’t know that yet” or “I’m not sure” were phrases that often seemed… Continue reading Three Ways to Find Joy & Keep Writing

community · writing workshop

Wordless Slides: Another Way To Get To Know Students

No matter where or how the year begins for classrooms, getting to know students is one of the most important parts of teaching. Wordless slides worked great!

community · conferring · COVID-19 · feedback · remote learning · Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing to Establish Community Blog Series

Seen, Valued, Heard: Providing Feedback AFTER Establishing Community

If your fall instruction plan includes any kind of virtual teaching, then building and maintaining relationships will be more crucial than ever. In order to engage and motivate students, educators must work to genuinely connect with students before focusing on academics.

community · notebooks · reading-writing connections · Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing to Establish Community Blog Series · shared writing · writer's notebook · writing about reading · writing workshop

Seen, Valued, Heard: Leveraging Shared Writing to Build Community

In my experience, many young writers struggle to use a writer’s notebook as a tool. They’re excited to have a notebook but unclear about what to “do” in there. Shared writing can be a powerful way to teach writers how to generate ideas for writing and to get themselves started, based on the books we are reading and discussing as a community.

community · COVID-19 · partnerships · Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing to Establish Community Blog Series

Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing Partnerships to Establish Community

In our blog series this week, the team at Two Writing Teachers hopes to support you in the common purpose of building community in your classrooms, however those classrooms may look this year. One important building block of community is helping kids feel connected through partnerships. Read on for ideas on this important topic . . .

community · digital writing · Seen, Valued, Heard: Writing to Establish Community Blog Series

Seen, Valued, Heard: Name Studies to Establish Community

There is importance in a name. Our names are entry ways into our identities and they can have great impact in cultivating classroom communities where students can thrive and grow.

Belief Statements · community · current events · writing process

The Unpredictability of a Writer’s Process

Writing has been a struggle for several weeks now. Today I take you through my process to get where I am now and the journey I intend to continue.