Identity Webs to Generate Ideas for Information Writing
When it comes to generating ideas for information writing, my experience has been that some students freeze. There are two things I have learned about why this occurs.
Celebrating Growth When(ever) it Happens
It’s dramatic when the light comes on, when a writer suddenly takes a step they had only recently not yet been ready to take. As a teacher of writers, I can’t wait to pounce on those moments, to facilitate the avalanche of growth on the horizon.
Fostering Authorship, Identity, and Agency in the Early Childhood Classroom Through Storytelling
As the storytelling culture is developed in the classroom, children are likely to begin to see themselves as authors and to use their voices in braver ways to share their ideas and who they are with their peers.
A Letter to Families as we Launch Remote Writing Workshop
As I considered what to write this week, I decided to share a piece I was crafting for back to school, as an instructional coach/remote kindergarten teacher this year. The process helped me to focus on what families might need, as they experience writing workshop in new ways (i.e. at their kitchen tables).
Seen, Valued, Heard: Honoring Identity to Establish Community
More than ever, identities matter, and more than ever, we must rise to the challenge of learning about our students, valuing them, and inspiring them to share all that matters in their worlds.
The Writer’s Process: Expand the Possibilities of the Genres You Teach
What do you find most challenging when it comes to the writing process? Have you considered a writer’s process as personal and unique or a step-by-step path rarely disrupted?
Living the Writerly Life in School
We say to kids, “Here’s your notebook! Now you are writer!” We want kids to write in school and beyond. Maybe there are things we can do in school to keep their writerly lives going–even when our units of study and minilessons have moved on to other aspects of the work.
(Writing) Life Imitates Art: Finding Inspiration in Ralph Fletcher’s Instagram
The creative lives we maintain outside of writing fill us up as humans with stories to tell. When we bring this life into the writing workshop, it builds community, and it lays the foundation for lifelong writers who have strategies for sustaining their own writing lives.
A Writer Emerges: Watching My Daughter Grow as a Writer
How do you when you are a writer? I’ve been following my daughter’s journey and watching her grow in her belief she is a writer. I’m a believer, too.
The Forging of a Writing Community
No longer scared and timid, our work has forged a community of writers.
Writers, Not Just For Workshop
When it comes to identity and living a writerly life, our work does not begin or end at writing workshop. In this post, I highlight three practical steps for nurturing writers beyond writing workshop.
Five Tips to Building a Rereading Habit
Do you make time for your writers to reread? Rereading is one of those pieces of the workshop we might be assuming our writers are doing but direction is needed to really make it a habit. Here are five tips to give rereading a place in your writing workshop this year.
A Soft Start To Writing Workshop
When thinking about the year ahead, you may be considering soft starts to the day. In this post, I share the why’s and how’s for having soft start to writing workshop.
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.
Writing Celebrations…But Why?
With all the pressures imposed by a segmented, unforgiving middle school schedule, why make time for writing celebrations? Are they really that important? Yes!
Writing Takes Guts: My Writing Backstory
The realization of this moment gave me chills and led me to share my writing backstory with Dana. Dana listened and encouraged me to open my presentation with this story. I was hesitant, the experience had halted my inner writer for years. What if sharing it again had the same result?
Discovering and Developing Student Writer Identity
For writers to grow, they must develop writer identities. How do we help them do that?
