Moving Along — and Backing Up — in Information Writing
When any task involves many skills, there are a lot of places for a metaphorical bump in a straw. When we break the task down, the final product involves many potential downfalls!
Category Archive: goals
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Entry Points to Build Independence: Reaching Your Writers
Where are the places your writers find themselves stuck? Identifying our writers’ sticky spots can help us determine entry points for writers to pull themselves out of being stuck and instead strive!
Questions as Learning Target Prompts
Learning targets, Post-Its, and I Can statements live in classrooms everywhere. Consider building those together through questions and prompts!
What’s in a Strategy?
Do your writers know how strategies can help them reach their destination? Better yet, do they know where they are going?
Taking Stock: Moving Forward
As teachers, how might we reflect on our own practice in a way that could make a difference for our students next year? Here are a few lenses for setting some goals…
Empowering Writers
As we approach the end of the year, it could be a great time to challenge students to think about who they are as learners, what helps them hold on to new concepts, and how they do their best work. That being said, this knowledge could empower students at any point in the year.
Creating Clarity for Writers
Having and stating goals takes courage, but this practice also leads to higher levels of learning and achievement.
A Few Ways to Empower Writers Using Mentor Texts
It could be said that what sets a writing workshop apart from other approaches to teaching writing is a focus on empowerment. Here are a few ways to empower writers when it comes to mentor texts…
A few ideas for conferring
Potentially, one of the most impactful opportunities we have for making a lasting difference on our students as writers is when we pull up next to them and confer with them. It’s SO worth spending some time reflecting, setting goals, and developing tools and strategies for the conferring work we do as teachers.
How Many Stars? Tools for self-assessment and goal-setting
The more we show learners what the work looks like at different levels and the reasons for that level, the better they are able to self-assess, set goals, and improve.
Writing Checklists: Tools for Independence and Goal-Setting
I am a list person. I have lists by my computer, by my bed, in the kitchen, in my car console– And I love crossing things off my lists. One of the reasons… Continue reading
Not All Writers Are the Same! Ideas for Differentiating in the Writing Workshop (Part 2)
The fact is, just like athletes that show up to the first day of practice, writers bring different skill sets. Some arrive to middle school not knowing where to put a period, while others already know how paint vivid pictures with words that knock our socks off. How do we plan for such a wide variety of writers?
Not All Writers Are the Same! Ideas for Differentiating in the Writing Workshop (Part 1)
Celebrating differences among our writers can sometimes be difficult for teachers of writing. But by expecting and planning for differences, we can set our students on trajectories more matched to who they are as writers. Here are a few ideas…
Setting Goals With Students
Once we teach students about goals and the importance of them in our lives, we can use the accompanying language in all aspects of their, and our own, learning.
Students and Goal Setting: My Choice, My Growth, My Responsibility
Asking my students to set their own goals creates one more opportunity for each of them to be in charge of their learning and reflect on their growth as a writer.
SUMMER LEARNING PLANS
As I looked ahead and began to attempt to set goals for the upcoming school year I realized I needed a plan. What is your summer learning plan?
Sustaining a Writing Habit
Do you need help sustaining a writing habit? Take a lesson from Jerry Seinfeld & “don’t break the chain.”
Aim Higher: Conferring and Student Goals
So, you’ve studied your students’ writing, analyzing their work for strengths and next steps. Maybe you took home a giant stack of writers notebooks, or a huge pile of on-demand writing assessments, or maybe you’ve just finished reading their published pieces. Now what?
Aim Higher: Know Students as Writers
Four ways to help you discover what makes your students tick as writers.
Aim Higher: Setting Goals for Editing
See how my students set personal editing goals.