Art Journaling – A Summer Holiday Writing Idea
Are you worried about how much learning loss in writing will greet you after the summer break? Has your idea bank of ideas to gone dry?
Category Archive: guest blogger
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Summer Writing Goals
This year, they were going to be the first group of 5th graders to break the summer curse.
The Importance of the Notebook
My hope is that my students leave knowing more about themselves as writers and as people…that they have used the pages of their notebook to find answers to questions. Have you written in your notebook today?
Diving Into Kidblogs
As the year winds down, I am reflecting on our classroom blogging experience and what I’ve learned.
What Gifted Writers Need
These young students come to me ready to write. They just need permission.
Third Grade Writing Units of Study – A First Look
Our guest blogger takes a look at the 3rd grade Units Of Study
Blogging Adventures
What challenges do your student bloggers face? How are you supporting their growth as blog writers?
Setting the Stage for Summer: Write from the Start!
So I stepped back and let the writers get to work. The chatter was about organizing notebooks, planning where they like to write and sharing writing over the summer.
“Write Beside Them,” said Penny Kittle. And so I did…
After reading Write Beside Them, Tara Smith realized she had to connect her teacher and writer identities. No longer would it be enough to share mentor texts and confer. She realized she needed to share her writing life with her students and walk them through her thinking as she wrote.
Slow and Steady
Nicole Frederickson, a middle school teacher, doesn’t believe in diagnostic writing assessments at the beginning of the school year. Find out why she builds a community of writers before she assesses her students.
Letting Go As Student Interests Take the Wheel
Kindergarten teacher Valerie Geshwind helps her students find their passions and their voice by honoring their interests, engaging them in a play-like writing workshop, & by supporting them as individuals.
Launching a Year of Writing With Poetry
Jenny Maehara believes poems are wonderful as a launching point for writing because students can write many poems in a unit and feel like prolific writers from the start. Find out how students can learn the habits of writers and the routines of writing workshop while crafting meaningful pieces using a balance of different details and thoughtful structure in Jenny’s guest blog post.
Anchor Charts in the World Language Classroom? Mais Oui!
Learn how literacy coach Mindi Rench has helped middle school world language teachers to construct charts with their students, which has helped students’ writing in French and Spanish.
What Would They Say?
What would your students say if they were asked what writing workshop means to them? Find out what a group of first graders value about writing workshop in Betsy Hubbard’s guest blog post.
Teaching Reflective Writers
Dana Murphy shares some thoughts about the expectations we place on students when we ask them to reflect on their writing.
What’s in a Name?
Christy Weisiger believes in calling students “writers”. Calling students writers gives students automatic entry into the classroom writing community. And that sometimes changes the way they will feel about writing for the rest of their lives.
Teaching Toolkits: Making Instruction Visible
Anna Gratz Cockerille provides tips for organizing and developing teaching toolkits you can use across the school year.
Sharing Voices by Blogging: A Guest Blog Post by Amy Rudd
About four years ago, I heard of a wonderful tool, Kidblog, that could be used as an ad-free environment when blogging with students and the key word that caused me to perk up when… Continue reading
A New Way To Learn About Teaching Writing
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition. – Isaac Asimov I began a writer’s group last year at… Continue reading
Slicing Through the School Year
Tara Smith shares how she launched, maintained, and celebrating the writing slice of life stories and comments — all year long — with her sixth grade students.