As I confer with each writer, I feel my eyes filling with tears. I show each student their writing from the first day of school and watch as their less cherubic and more mature faces brighten. "That's really my first writing in first grade?" "I didn't even use the whole page." "I can't read it." and "That doesn't look like my writing now." were typical comments.
Category: writing workshop
QR Coding Our Way to Summer Writing!
QR Codes might just be the way to help summer writers keep writing!
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Nerdy Birdy: A Review & Giveaway
When I first opened Nerdy Birdy by Aaron Reynolds, I was not (yet) reading it with the eye of a writer. I was way too smitten with the bird on the front cover. I mean, look at this guy: Nerdy Birdy is cute, but he is most definitely not cool. He is no good at sports or… Continue reading Nerdy Birdy: A Review & Giveaway
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Purposeful Play: A Review and a Giveaway
In the new book Purposeful Play: A Teachers Guide to Igniting Deep & Joyful Learning Across the Day, Kristine Mraz, Alison Porcelli, and Cheryl Tyler have laid out the research and practical advice that many of us have been looking for.
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Why Would Writing Stop When School Ends?
"Janie, you have a lifetime of writing. Writing, collecting stories, and sharing with others is a gift of life, and it never ends. Aren't we lucky Janie?"
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A Poetry Break: If I Were…
Making space for poetry.
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Book Review: The Journey is Everything by Katherine Bomer
In her brilliant new book, The Journey Is Everything :Teaching Essays That Students Want to Write for People Who Want to Read Them, Katherine Bomer makes a powerful and passionate case for the joyful embrace of a new vision for teaching our students how to write (and read) the essay.
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Emergent Writing and Star of the Day
My son, Alex, will be starting kindergarten this coming September, and I find myself thinking back to what I did to help those four and five year old emergent writers. With rising expectations for what incoming kindergarteners can do, I've been dusting off my kindergarten bag of tricks to work with Alex, to help him feel confident and ready when school starts.
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Watch and Notice
Help your students see the possibilities by writing in front of them
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The Promise of a Writing Maker Space
As I opened my classroom door Friday I knew we would be writing a poem for Mother's Day. I was feeling a bit guilty about the ease and maybe the lack of thought that I had put into the gift this year. As I switched on the lights and straightened books, I thought about Wonderopolis. I entered Mother's Day in the search box and found a wonder on Mother's Day and an invitation to dive into Writing Maker Space!
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Create Your Own Text: Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts
Use a teacher-written mentor text for your next unit of study
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Exploratory Notebooks
Beginning to think about Exploratory Notebooks and easing into a research writing unit.
