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…
Category Archive: middle school
2 Comments
Nurturing a Sense of Optimism Through Vertical Visits
Although this time of year predictably proves to be extremely busy, creatively scheduling a little bit of time to visit at least some of your next-year’s writers can pay valuable dividends.
Trust the Kids
Finding ways to trust kids, it might be said, creates more space for learning. In this post, I offer a few ways trust can be manifested in a writing workshop…
Where is the Attention?
Sometimes it can be difficult to imagine creating or allowing a wider audience to read our students’ writing. But there is great possibility in doing so. It just takes a shift in attention…
Time to Write
Donald Murray, author of the seminal text A Writer Teaches Writing (Houghton Mifflin, 1985), teaches us that one of the most important things to a writer is time, time to write. But with the many time constraints faced by teachers, how can we be thinking about time in ways that make a difference for our students?
Rethinking Learning Targets
We all want to support and nurture inspired writers who work independently. So how might we carefully avoid creating uninspiring, teacher-dependent environments for learning? I present a few ideas here…
Strengthening Writing Partnerships, Part 2
In my previous November post about partnerships, three ideas were shared: (1) Study existing partnerships to assess current and potential effectiveness; (2) Teach a replicable process for meaningful revision; and (3) Teach writers how to create process pages. Today I will share just a few more strategies for supporting and strengthening writing partnerships…
Strengthening Writing Partnerships, Part I
A writing partner provides a sounding board and creates a social opportunity for feedback, criticism, and notions of what improvement could look like or sound like. The problem with partnerships, however, is that left to their own devices kids are not very good at being partners. How can we help kids get better? Here are a few strategies…
Writing Conferences: What to Do When a Writer Doesn’t Say Much?
When conferring with a writer, our big aim is to engage in a meaningful conversation with the student about his or her writing. An individual writing conference is likely the single most effective way for a teacher to help move a writer forward. But many times, even with our best intentions and attempts at “training” students how to converse during a conference, the student will sometimes say something curt, like, “Good.” Or, “It’s fine.” Silence. That’s it. That’s all they have to say. What to do? Fear not! Conferring Carl suggests six strategies to help teachers address this situation…
Different Ways to Use Checklists in Writing Workshop
Student-facing checklists can be a powerful tool. While rubrics are helpful for teachers, checklists are helpful for students. Checklists can serve to provide clear targets for writers as they strive to craft pieces of writing. But what might be different ways to use them in your writing workshop? Read to find out…
Enlisting Writing Support from Parents
Parents can be a tremendous educational resource. Yet, in middle school it can be challenging, as developmentally our students are beginning to morph from children into young adults. Thinking about next year, I have drafted some ideas for partnering with parents on how to help their kids become stronger writers. How might parents provide support in the way writing workshop teachers believe is most helpful? Here are a few ideas…
End of Year Reflections and June Planning
As we approach the end of another school year, many of us begin making plans for outgrowing ourselves. But what might be some lenses to think through when taking on such a task? I have a few ideas . . .
4 Tips for Successful Active Involvement in a Minilesson
In a minilesson, we work to not only demonstrate a strategy sometimes employed by professional writers, but also to provide a quick opportunity for young writers assembled before us to apply it, either in their own writing or in a co-authored class composition. This short segment of the minilesson during which writers ‘give a strategy a go’ themselves, often called the “Active Involvement” or “Active Engagement,” allows writers an immediate opportunity for application in the supportive environs of the meeting area. How can we make this part of the lesson really count?
Tools of the Trade — A Guest Blog Post by Vicki Meigs-Kahlenberg
We can’t control what happen next in our news feeds or in the lives of our students. By making intentional time in our curriculum for writing, sharing and publishing, we can equip our students with the most powerful tools we have available to develop and strengthen their voices within our classrooms, and create a confidence within to speak their truths out in the world.
Fitting It All In: Solving Predictable Problems
For many of us, especially in middle school, trying to fit all the pieces of writing workshop into, say, a 41-minute schedule, can feel daunting. How can we teach a minilesson, get our kids working, confer with individuals and small groups, provide a mid-workshop interruption, and facilitate a teaching share…all in that tight time frame?
The Power of Language Revisited
When it comes to the teaching of writing in a writing workshop, language is everything. It is through the words we teachers choose that writers are created, built up, encouraged, and inspired.
Putting the Large Stones In First: A September Check-In
Nervously lowering myself into a chair, I scooted myself closer to the table. Around me sat three new colleagues. My new 7th grade teaching team. Having moved from my familiar home in small-town… 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…
Risk-taking in the Writer’s Notebook
We learn when we experiment and take risks. The writer’s notebook could be a place worth considering as a place to do some risk-taking!