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 the second day of class. I asked them to create a craft table with a partner for two reasons. First, I… Continue reading Craft Tables for You — Part III of III
Category: craft
Craft Tables for You — Part II of III
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 about what craft tables are and how to create them, then click here to read it now. This week I'm sharing two… Continue reading Craft Tables for You — Part II of III
Share this:
Share this:
Craft Tables for You — Part I of III
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 in writing workshop happens during one-to-one writing conferences and during small group strategy lessons, it helps to know books really well. Hence,… Continue reading Craft Tables for You — Part I of III
Share this:
Share this:
An Interview with Maribeth Boelts + a Giveaway of Happy Like Soccer
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 been corresponding with her through e-mail and Facebook for the past four years. Her writing has served as a mentor for many… Continue reading An Interview with Maribeth Boelts + a Giveaway of Happy Like Soccer
Share this:
Share this:
The Book Stack
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, however, is one I found myself engulfing. Even though there are 21 conversations with different illustrators, and even though I started with… Continue reading The Book Stack
Share this:
Share this:
Purpose, Process, & Craft with Carl Anderson
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 they did to write them well. Carl shared what he has learned by studying the Beatles' music with an audience of educators… Continue reading Purpose, Process, & Craft with Carl Anderson
Share this:
Share this:
Spilling Ink in the Classroom
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 in the classroom writing center. Year-after-year I found copies of said guides and placed them in the writing center once the school… Continue reading Spilling Ink in the Classroom
Share this:
Share this:
Picture Books in Upper Elementary School
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 Street. "A picture book?" one student said disdainfully. "Yes, a picture book," I replied. "We're going to read lots of picture books… Continue reading Picture Books in Upper Elementary School
Share this:
Share this:
Planned & Unplanned Mentor Text Conferences
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 the end of fourth grade: “What have you learned about writing from reading?” Every-single-kid’s-response can be boiled down to one word: “Nothing.” … Continue reading Planned & Unplanned Mentor Text Conferences
Share this:
Share this:
Mentoring Primary Writers
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, I traveled to Philadelphia for the NCTE Annual Convention. On Monday, I was in a new school working with a dynamic group… Continue reading Mentoring Primary Writers
Share this:
Share this:
Personification, An Effective Ending, & More
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 what this book would be most suitable for teaching (i.e., there's so much it can be used for!). I took a week… Continue reading Personification, An Effective Ending, & More
Share this:
Share this:
A New Source for Finding Mentor Texts
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 their use of teaching with mentor texts needs to have. Earlier this year Susan Ehmann and Kellyann Gayer published I can write… Continue reading A New Source for Finding Mentor Texts
