A meeting place for a world of reflective writers.
Recording for revision, encouraging translanguaging, and repetition are useful strategies to exalt and empower multilingual writers. As teachers of multilingual students, encouraging translanguaging and recording as revision is akin to telling students: every aspect of you is valued. Every aspect of you is important.
When I first started teaching and heard experienced teachers converse using acronyms related to English Language Development, I wondered if I would be able to memorize these acronyms as freely … Continue Reading Supporting English Language Learners with Summary Writing
Since the beginning of our school year, our schedule has changed more times than I could count on one hand. Students have come back from virtual learning, some have moved … Continue Reading Behaviors: Meet Writers Where They Are
I remember the day I ran over to my partner teacher’s classroom. If my memory serves me well, I may have darted over to her classroom, flailing a single sheet … Continue Reading A Writer’s Purpose.
Calling all primary writing teachers. Today Janet Ahn shares how she worked with her Kindergarteners to continue thrive in writing workshop through the pandemic. These young scholars continued to draft pieces, engage in conferring, collaborate to mark up mentor texts, and publish their writing through online platforms. Their dedication to continuing the writing workshop virtually was a reflection of how they truly saw themselves as writers.
There are many strategies we can use to help us be the best teachers we can be for all of our students, but keeping good strategies in the forefront can be especially helpful for EAL students. By adding some simple strategies, we can also help EALs enjoy rich and meaningful learning experiences in the classroom.
As the 2020-2021 school year sets to start, we recognize that educators need each other more than ever. We need to hold onto our beliefs about the teaching of writing … Continue Reading Inviting Voices from the Community
Now our year is coming to a close and we are having to find new ways to end the year and say goodbye. With another change comes another opportunity for trauma… it is important to remember that the health and welfare of every person comes first, even and especially as we bring the school year to a close.
In the last two months, our world has required us to live in the space of continuous new experiences. All of us, but especially the world of education, have taken a hard and immediate shift. It would be blind denial to say it has been easy, but this past week has taken me by surprise.
Meeting the needs of our students may sometimes require much more than paper or pencils, but it is not always as hard as we might think.
All I wanted was for their pencils to keep moving, for the writing to flow without stopping. For a short while, that proved to be difficult, but not impossible.
What we place on the walls of a classroom tells students, or any other person who enters the room, what is valued most, and what we should value most in our classrooms is student work.
All students have stories to share. All of them. Our challenge may be to undo what has been done to have students believe they have nothing of value to share.
There have been many times I have had to hang on to patience, hold my breath, and wait. I have had students that do not hesitate to jump into writing … Continue Reading Wait Time
The truth… I’d rather not talk about spelling. There are more important things in a writing workshop, than to talk about spelling. Spelling well is a good thing. When we edit what we write, it is profusely important, but it has nothing to do with growing a writer.
When we focus on spelling or grammar correctness, the growing writer becomes stifled.
When my sister and I were kids, we played Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo. I witnessed her saving the princess at least three times during our summer video game marathons. … Continue Reading English Language Development Frames
Eight educators share their expertise to help us understand the way to meet the needs of students who are learning English within the context of writing workshop.
Read on for a snippet of a writing conference using Google Translate with an upper elementary student who is learning English.
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 