How do we reach our writers who come to us from traumatic backgrounds? How do we help writers who have painful stories they don’t feel comfortable sharing? How do we help children feel safe to write something when they prefer to sit and write nothing? Please share your ideas and experiences in the comments so we can learn from each other and reach more of our writers.
Kids need to know why writing matters. And we need to not only know, but presence that ‘why’, both for our students and for ourselves.
All week here at Two Writing Teachers we will be sharing how to reach ALL of your writers.
There is power in knowing and understanding standards because within them, we can extract teaching points, learning targets, and even success criteria. In this post, we’ll thing about how we can use the standards so set up anchor charts, as well as learning progressions in order to establish clarity and navigable pathways for writers.
Writers need a purpose. A foundation. Yet sometimes we rush kids through the planning and rehearsal phase of writing. What are some ways to support kids in heading into writing grounded in purpose? Read on to learn a few strategies…
Over the years, kindergarteners have shown me that the kinds of environmental tools that they will actually use are: ones which are at their level, ones which they have meaningful memories (or ownership)… Continue reading
Welcome to the first Tuesday in November!
Crafting a system for conferring notes can be a catch-all of sorts, a strategy for ensuring that teammates engage in the highest leverage instructional conversations before the unit begins—even if they haven’t had extended time to unit plan together.
How do you keep learning and growing as a teacher of writing? How do you apply what you’ve learned from reading professional texts? Today I am sharing the way I am applying my learning from professional texts with my third grade students.
Just like Dory, in the movie Finding Nemo, young writers can easily lose their way and forget where they were headed, especially if they stop for too long and lose their momentum.
Specific feedback helps students replicate what you want them to do in their writing.
Welcome! Join today’s Slice of Life Story Challenge by… writing a post, sharing the permalink in the comments section, and visiting at least three other slicers to leave a comment for them.
Every now and then, a professional book comes along that has the potential to really change how I teach. You have a chance to win a copy of Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk by Shana Frazin and Katy Wischow, and I know you will love this book!
All students have stories to share. All of them. Our challenge may be to undo what has been done to have students believe they have nothing of value to share.
When it comes to writing, a need for writers to have a clear vision is one of the big reasons we provide mentor texts in writing workshop. Kids need to see not only a goal or end toward which they may aspire, but I would add that they need to be provided models to become inspired. For we all know the effect inspiration can have on anything we are up to in life, right? It matters. It helps. And certainly, writing is no exception. Read on to learn about why making a big deal of publishing informational writing is worth considering…
After finishing each swirl of her curly hair, Camila circled her paintbrush around and around, forming eyes. For many children, the self-portrait stops here, at the outline. I kneeled next to the young… Continue reading
Welcome! Join today’s Slice of Life story challenge by… writing a post, sharing the permalink in the comments section, and visiting at least three other slicers to leave a comment for them.
There can be many moving parts in the writing workshop. Partnerships can be a driving force in the growth and goal setting of writers within your classroom. In my experience, there are three areas I work to strengthen within my writers to ensure partnerships foster this growth and development across the year.
It’s almost time for the National Day On Writing! Read on for some ideas on ways to celebrate with students. How will you celebrate this day?
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.
