Whether you've been teaching writing for decades or you're just completing your first year, there are always so many questions to ask oneself when reflecting upon the school year.
Category: reflections
A Letter to a New Writing Teacher
As summer ends and the 2023-2024 school year begins, I am welcoming many new teachers to our district. After meeting with them for a short time today, there are three major messages that I hope the new teachers in my district heard and internalized.
Try Reflective Notebooks This Year: Straight From the Classroom
Learn a reflective routine for students that takes less than five minute!
Quick & Fun Lesson Closures? Yes, Please!
Embrace the thrill of trying something new. Know that doing so doesn't require abundant time, energy, or preparation. Small shifts have a real impact on classroom energy, enthusiasm, and engagement. How do you add variety, joy, and/or playfulness to lesson closings?
The Language to Develop Agency: Amping Up Agency Blog Series
Teachers can build and increase students’ agency by using specific phrases at when conferring, leading small groups, or holding reflection/share sessions at the end of a workshop.
Inviting Caregivers into the Learning Journey
A few tips to strengthen the home-school connection.
Revisiting Writing Through a Lens of Gratitude
As we head into a season of thanksgiving and celebrations, it is worth it to take the time to simply pause and reflect on writing with our students.
Writing My Way Back
Can your own writing lead you back to where you find happiness? Here's hoping!
Three Ways to Exalt Process for Young Writers
My litmus test for the work we do in the classroom pivots on an understanding that collecting one's own ideas and practicing ways to communicate them will serve students outside classroom walls. And it is with that framing in mind - with children reflecting on their journeys, in carefully selecting the language I use, and in sharing feedback on growth as opposed to the final alone- that I hope to continually communicate the importance of process over product.Â
Teaching Writers to Reflect + Giveaway
For the past two weeks, I've been immersing myself in some reflection. This book, TEACHING WRITERS TO REFLECT, has been an excellent tool as I pass along reflective practices to my students.
Reimagining Writing Assessment: A Reflection + Giveaway
In the opening pages of Maja Wilson's book, REIMAGINING WRITING ASSESSMENT, Thomas Newkirk gets the ball rolling with this statement, "Rubrics regularly fail to offer help to a writer because they focus on what writing has (features) not what writing does (effect)." Today I'm sharing my reflections as well as offering a giveaway to one lucky reader.
OLW CHECK-IN: EMBRACE
Maybe it was Betsy's post, OLW Check-in: Note that first brought the whispers. As I read her post and thought about my final week of school I heard the whispers grow louder. Embrace.Â