Planning for Independent Writing Time: A Middle School Solution
With the volume of students most middle school writing teachers serve, how is one to plan for differentiation? Using a basketball analogy, here is one play you can run…
Category Archive: middle school
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The Argument Scavenger Hunt
Although I’m not typically a fan of stand-alone activities, this exercise, presented at last year’s NCTE Conference, incorporated many positive elements aimed at supporting writers working doing argumentative work…
There Is No Finish Line
Using student work as feedback for our teaching informs us. It empowers us. In a way, it allows young writers to become our teachers…
Teaching Shares: Ending Strong
Working within a tightly segmented middle school schedule (or any pre-planned schedule) can sometimes pose a challenge to “fit in” an opportunity for closure. With this special challenge in mind, how can we perhaps be more intentional about this important time in our workshops?
Make Curiosity Your Best Friend
As a new teacher, I sometimes made assumptions about my students that may not have been based in reality. Of course, this is human to do so. We all make assumptions at times. But when it comes to teaching writing, what if we replaced the act of making assumptions with curiosity? What if we worked to make curiosity our best friend in our teaching?
Throwback Thursday: Setting Up for Success in the Middle School Writing Workshop
As each new year approaches, many of us begin thinking about the physical space(s) we create for our writers. How might it/they be more effective? Inviting? Or different? The spaces we design for our middle school writers can greatly affect how they “view” writing. Check out this week’s Throwback Thursday for ideas on creating space for writing in the middle school writing workshop!
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…
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.