With very good intentions, we teach kids to do their best to really finish a story before they move on to the next one. However, a little bit of flexibility will go a long way in increasing engagement, volume, and independence in young writers.
Category: engagement
Go-To Digital Tools for Writing Workshop
Digital tools can transform your teaching by allowing students to have a writing community beyond the classroom walls, be innovative, make meaningful connections to other writers and students, have more resources readily available, and have true, authentic reasons for writing.
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Writing Workshop is Hard Work
Last Thursday, I endeavored to explain writing workshop to parents in my district at Parent University. As I drove home after the presentation, I felt unsettled, like there had been a gap in what the parents were hoping to learn and what I delivered. What would you be sure to include in a presentation to parents on writing workshop?
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Supporting Boy Writers: An Interview with Ralph Fletcher
Have you ever banned a topic from your writing workshop? If you have, you’re not alone…but you may want to think twice about that policy.
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Top Ten Ways to Keep Minilessons from Turning into Maxilessons
We've all been there. You've gathered your students into the classroom meeting area, nice and cozy, with the intention of doing just a quick l'il minilesson. Just a quick tip about writing and off they go, right? Maybe just a quick little demonstration? With a tiny bit of practice? Oh, and a chart... you'll need… Continue reading Top Ten Ways to Keep Minilessons from Turning into Maxilessons
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Pump Up the Volume!
I recently had a dream about teaching writing. In my dream the kids wrote and wrote and wrote for hours on end as I floated effortlessly from student to student. You could hear a pin drop. When I let kids know that I was very sorry, but there were only a few minutes left, they… Continue reading Pump Up the Volume!
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Keep Learning
Today I read a few pages from Peter Johnston's book, Choice Words. You know this book, right? If not, it is a small, powerful read that can change your teaching life forever. (If you click on the link, you can preview the book online.) In the excerpt I read, Johnston writes: Of course, if students… Continue reading Keep Learning
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The Secret Ingredient to Creating Engaged Writers
I’ve been thinking about student engagement in writing workshop for the past couple of weeks. I started thinking about it as I was reading Guy-Write, Ralph Fletcher’s new book. My thoughts about engagement continued as I sat in Maggie Beattie Roberts’s class about technology and media at the summer Reading Institute. Everything came to a… Continue reading The Secret Ingredient to Creating Engaged Writers
