Are students constrained when they write five-paragraph essays? If we change our working definition of essay writing, then we can teach beyond the five-paragraph essays we often see in schools.
Category: expository
The Joys of Sharing Expository Nonfiction Mentor Texts with Students + a Giveaway
Consider sharing these six books with your fact-loving students. Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win all six books for your classroom library.
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NCTE 2018: Here We Come!
Here's a peek at the dates and times three members of our co-author team will be presenting at NCTE this weekend.
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Expository Leads + Giveaways!
Challenging students to push past their safe zones of writing has been a challenge all year. We all reaped some great rewards as the year came to a close.
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Infusing Information Writing Throughout the Day: Diving Into Information Writing
A recovering hater of information writing, this post is my first step towards bringing information writing to life for my third graders! It is a vision and collection of possibliities for infusing information writing across the curriculum through the day.
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Politics, Heated Debate, and Most Importantly: Angling Evidence to Support Persuasive Writing
To be an effective democratic citizen, the ability to engage in debate is crucial. For anyone remotely interested in politics (don't worry, I won't stay on this topic long, I promise!), debate is a hot topic as of late. The primaries are in full swing, and the shows candidates put on in the party debates are… Continue reading Politics, Heated Debate, and Most Importantly: Angling Evidence to Support Persuasive Writing
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Developing Information Writing Muscles: Writing about Science
Want to inspire kids to do more information writing? Teach them to write well about science.
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New Blog Series: Tailoring our Teaching / Assessment-based Strategy Groups for Expository Writing
When I first began teaching using a workshop model, I spent forever planning my minilessons. I wanted to make sure that my language was exactly right, and that I got to each part of the minilesson (I often forgot the active engagement). I felt that the quality of my minilessons was the measure of my… Continue reading New Blog Series: Tailoring our Teaching / Assessment-based Strategy Groups for Expository Writing
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The Final Unit of Study
My students are embarking on their final unit of study of the school year. We're doing research-based essays, which I'm attempting to tie-into the "This I Believe" Style. I have my teaching points and some of my charts (well, the ones for this week at least!) ready-to-go, but I'm still trying to write my own… Continue reading The Final Unit of Study
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Boxes & Bullets: Framing Personal Essays
News & Announcements Chart for Monday, 11/10/08 Originally uploaded by teachergal In order to keep my demonstrations fresh, I've come to believe that I have to craft a NEW piece of writing each and every year for units I've taught in the past. If I don't, then I find my teaching becomes stale. Plus, I… Continue reading Boxes & Bullets: Framing Personal Essays
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Quick Publish Assessment for Literary Essay
In case you're wondering what the on-demand assessment (aka: Quick Publish Assessment) I was blogging about earlier looks like, here's what it looks like: LITERARY ESSAY QUICK PUBLISH ASSESSMENT TASK: Write a four paragraph literary essay about _______ by _______. TIME: 50 minutes MINI-RUBRIC: The essay advanced a thesis or a claim. (1 .5 0… Continue reading Quick Publish Assessment for Literary Essay
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Thinking about on-demand lit. essay writing
When my students return from vacation they're going to be spending a week in their notebooks before we start our memoir unit of study. (We're saving poetry for last since I didn't feel we HAD to do Poetry now just b/c it's National Poetry Month. I've always done it in April, but wanted to change-it-up… Continue reading Thinking about on-demand lit. essay writing
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 