Practical tips for analyzing student writing with a lens of encoding.
Category: Reflective Practice
Channeling Vivian Gussin Paley
As I embark on a new school year, I'm trying to channel the storytelling and storyacting work of Vivian Gussin Paley.
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Is It Time to Teach Yet?
How do teachers know when it’s the right time to transition from routines to content? The answer lies in the readiness of both the students and the teacher.
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Reclaiming Joy: Effecting System-Wide Change in Writing Instruction
In 2022, I found myself discouraged, restless, and in need of a challenge. Read to learn how I embarked on a journey to transform writing instruction in my district. I'll share the work that laid our foundation, offer ideas to try, and I'll preview what's to come for our district.
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The Power of a Guided Journal: Reflective Practice
Encouraging children to write regularly and independently is important. Providing children with guided options for writing outside of school can help them develop daily writing habits and become more confident and expressive writers.
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Writing Teachers: It’s Time to Pass the Baton!
By taking a few simple steps and asking some easy questions, you can pass your knowledge about your current students on to the next teacher and prepare for a new group of incoming writers.
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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.
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Let’s Get Curious! Using Appreciative Inquiry in the Writing Classroom
Students are our north stars. When we get to know students (academically and beyond), we can more clearly see and honor who they are and what they know. Appreciative inquiry enables us to capitalize on the abundant assets already present.
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Seeing Problems as Opportunities
Problems during writing workshop can become opportunities to reflect on our instruction and work as a community to find solutions.
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When Management Issues in the Workshop are the Result of Mixed Messaging
The beginning of the school year is perfect timing for the classic cautionary tale, an anecdote shared with the intention of saving others a difficulty I created for myself. My purpose is to both teach and entertain, as I humbly recount the thing I should not have done (and will be mindful not to do again).
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Tumbling Toward Open Space in a Workshop
These tumbleweeds feel like a metaphor for the writers in our workshops: the times they dance freely across the landscape and the times they get stuck. As a teacher of writers, it’s prompting me to step back and reflect on those stuck places. I hope to offer you a similar moment of reflection on the tumbleweed-jams that might be forming in your own workshop(s).
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Time for a Shift
Writing workshop is powerful because it is a consistent investment of time for writers to work with intention at their craft. It is sacred space. As teachers of workshop, we are intentional about teaching writers something every day. This is how growth happens—day by day over weeks and months and years.
