A meeting place for a world of reflective writers.
In my experience, many young writers struggle to use a writer’s notebook as a tool. They’re excited to have a notebook but unclear about what to “do” in there. Shared writing can be a powerful way to teach writers how to generate ideas for writing and to get themselves started, based on the books we are reading and discussing as a community.
Seven reasons why we should help children lean on writing in hard times (with examples from a first grade classroom).
From the planning process to the creation, read to find out six ways to make kids the center of your charts–the center of learning.
Maybe this will be the year I do a lot more shared writing!
Some sit at a keyboard and the words just pour out. Others use a pen and paper, working slowly and deliberately. I know one writer who prefers a typewriter to a laptop.
And then there are the storytellers.
Hey, pssst… Yeah, you. Have you noticed that it’s already the middle of April? It’s spring. There are only a matter of weeks left in the school year (not that … Continue Reading It’s Now or Never to Start Up a Shared Writing Routine
What are the books that have shaped you as a teacher of writing? Reflecting today, in thanks, for the authors and books that have influenced my life as a teacher.
Whether it’s storytelling, or shared writing, or interactive writing, any piece of writing that your whole class created together is going to be extremely helpful to have at your fingertips while you are moving about the classroom conferring.
Thinking about your demonstration texts this way can give you some inspiration for multiple ways to teach the same minilesson, to the whole class, or to small groups as follow-up.
Last week I wrote a post titled How To Plan A Minilesson From Scratch, and I outlined a very simple way to plan minilessons, based on the work of my wonderful colleagues at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Now, I am going to backtrack a bit and revisit just a teensy weensy bit of what I said. I wrote, “Every minilesson can pretty much go the same way.” And this is absolutely true, most of the time. Except for those times when it’s not true.
It’s been several months since I’ve written for Two Writing Teachers. In December my son was born, and I was on maternity leave until a few weeks ago. Then, in March I pushed … Continue Reading A Mini-Crash-Course on Oral Storytelling
A quick, down and dirty, overview of shared writing and how it might support your students.
Even if your students won’t be blogging in March, you can still dip-in & dip-out of the Classroom Challenge in one of two ways.
Karren Colbert is an educational consultant and founder of Write Brained Learning. She works with elementary teachers across the country and also presents at state and national conferences. Karren blogs at … Continue Reading GUEST BLOG POST: Say It Like a Writer
I recently received a review copy of Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st-Century Classroom, which is edited by Anne Herrington, Kevin Hodgson, and Charles Moran. … Continue Reading Professional Talk: Shared Writing 2.0
I’ve read Jacqueline Woodson’s Book Sweet, Sweet Memory to three classes now. However, I’ve never had such an intense discussion with any other group of children about Sweet, Sweet Memory … Continue Reading “Everything and everyone goes on and on.”
