Welcome to the next stop on Melanie Meehan’s Every Child Can Write blog tour! Today’s focus is on Chapter 8, which has excellent ideas for educators when it comes to teaching striving writers about spelling and conventions. Be sure to comment on this post for a chance to win your own copy of Every Child Can Write! (You are going to want a copy of this book ASAP! It is THAT good!)
This new book by Cynthia and Sanford Levinson is a treasure trove of information as well as a handy example of many elements of inspiring nonfiction writing.
First graders use a mentor text to get crafty during a unit on informational writing.
I’m proud to announce my second professional book with Stenhouse Publishers will be coming to you in the winter of 2016.
This week I’m sharing the Happy Like Soccer craft table my graduate students created. My students worked in partnerships to flesh out explanations for craft moves they identified in Maribeth Boelts’s book on… Continue reading
This is the second in a series of three posts that include craft tables you can download for use during your conferences or strategy lessons. If you missed last week’s post, which talked… Continue reading
Craft tables are a way to organize one’s thinking about a books teachers will be use as a mentor text. Since a good deal of the mentor text work we do with students… Continue reading
Maribeth Boelts will be the visiting author for the graduate course I’m teaching about children’s literature and the teaching of writing this summer. I’m SO EXCITED to meet her in person since I’ve… Continue reading
An eclectic little stack today. Click on the images to go to a link about the book. I’ve been enjoying books I can read a little here and a little there. This book,… Continue reading
Carl Anderson (aka: The Conferring Guy) has not only listened to the Beatles’ music; he has studied it. He has determined by the Beatles wrote particular songs, how they wrote them, and what… Continue reading
Nearly every professional book I’ve ever read has encouraged me to include guides about writing in the classroom writing center. Year-after-year, I tried to search for books about writing for kids to stock… Continue reading
The Fall of 2006 brought me the savviest class I ever taught. Nearly all 32 of them scoffed at me on Wednesday, September 6th when I pulled out Nothing Ever Happens on 90th… Continue reading
I have been a bit of a mentor text aficionada for the past three and a half years. It all started when I asked an incoming class of fifth graders this question at… Continue reading
The past eight days have been exceedingly busy, while also being exceedingly great. First, Ruth was here and we spent a lot of time planning out the final third of our book. Then,… Continue reading
A copy of Laurie Halse Anderon‘s The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School arrived at my home last week. I read it once and put it aside since I was unsure of… Continue reading
I’m not recommending a children’s book you can use in your classroom today. Instead, I have something better. It’s a professional book about children’s books that every writing teacher needs to have improve… Continue reading
As I settled in my chair with a highlighter, pen, and sticky notes, I cracked open Crafting Writers K – 6 by Elizabeth Hale. I started reading and was soon totally immersed in… Continue reading
Last week I wrote about the power of three in writing. I felt my post lacked specific examples of what this looks like in published writing. So, I looked back at Carmen Agra… Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a lot about conventions and their importance. Without proper conventions, how can a piece of writing hold its own? All of our young writers need to realize that published writers… Continue reading
I’ve been preparing for a p.d. session on conventions that I’m leading with one of my colleagues next Friday. Hence, I’m trying to look at picture books with an eye for grammar and… Continue reading
