Your students should work and feel like real writers.
Category: writing workshop
Unpacking the Power of Talk: Starting with What Matters Most
Early on, as a writing teacher, I didn't realize the power that talk plays in the writing workshop. Over the years, I have learned there are many benefits from intentionally making talk a priority.
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What Are Their Tools For Independence? Starting With What Matters Most
One of the most important questions I always have in the back of my head when I am working with students is how to ensure that the concept I am teaching will become a part of the students' independent repertoire. How can I tell that I am teaching the writer and not just enhancing the one… Continue reading What Are Their Tools For Independence? Starting With What Matters Most
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Notebooks: Starting with What Matters Most
Before summer began, we at Two Writing Teachers planned this blog series, and I blithely volunteered to write a post about the value of notebooks in writing workshop. Notebooks. What was I thinking?! So much has been written about them. I started rereading, and ran out of time...A single post, I realized, would barely scratch… Continue reading Notebooks: Starting with What Matters Most
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We Are Writers Here! Starting with What Matters Most
When I think about what I first want my students to know, what matters most to me as a teacher of writing, more than capital letters or topic sentences or punctuation, I want them to believe they have ideas worth sharing and stories worth telling. I want them to know their voice matters and their words can make a difference. I want them to believe they are writers, right now, whatever their reading proficiency, whatever their language background, whatever their home circumstances. WE ARE WRITERS HERE. We all matter, we all belong, we all can and should write.
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Active Authentic Audience: Starting with What Matters Most
Once an audience is established it becomes omnipresent in your classroom, the effects aren’t limited to the one sharing; they reach the community as a whole.
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New Blog Series: Starting with What Matters Most in Writing Workshop
Over the next eight days, my friends and I at Two Writing Teachers will share what goes into developing writers who work with agency, purpose, and independence in our Blog Series: Starting With What Matters Most. Set a reminder or mark your calendars, you won't want to miss a day of these timely posts.
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July Blogging Break
Announcing a short pause in our regular blogging schedule
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Micro-Workshop: Making Time for Conventions and Grammar
How do you find time to put a focus on the littlest pieces of our writing to create big pieces of work?
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Three Tips for Summer Storytelling Practice
Whether you tell stories with the children in your life, or share stories with other adults, these tips will get you started and keep you going all summer long.
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Have Charts, Will Travel. Mentor texts? Even better!
My last post was about some of the reflections that I want to remember when I teach any genre of writing, but I also wanted to share more of our poetry workshop and some of the amazing poems students wrote during our time by the lake. Teaching poetry in an outdoor education setting to fifth-grade students is… Continue reading Have Charts, Will Travel. Mentor texts? Even better!
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Where Have All the Narratives Gone?
I've been thinking about why young writers struggle with personal narrative and realistic fiction writing.
