Unboxing Fresh Routines Blog Series

Identity Through Process: Unboxing Fresh Routines Blog Series

Identity influences whether we engage with writing or not. Spending time on routines early in the year to help students develop a unique writing process and build a writerly identity pays off! Learn actionable steps to try this year, no matter your curricular resource.

how-to writing · kindergarten

“How To” Write: Using the Genre to Teach the Genre: Reflective Practice

Do you want to know how to write a book about how to write a book?

academic choice · choice · middle school · process · units of study

Designing Writing Units Where Students Choose the Product

Many of today’s students crave choice, freedom, and the excitement of exploring something new. This year, as you prepare to roll out your writing units, you may also want to reconsider the level of constraints within each unit. How and when might you invite students to choose the product that best fits their personal preference and intended audience?

authors · big picture · character development · collecting · narrative · writing process

Flailing and Feedback In Writing Process As Critical: KidLit Authors Share Why

Slowing down the brainstorming part of the writing process and recognizing the emotionality of feedback has big rewards for two published authors, in addition to our young classroom writers.

routines · writing workshop routines

Ways to Warm Up for Writing (At All Ages and Stages)

Athletes warm up before practice, musicians warm up before a rehearsal--so why wouldn't writers warm up before writing?

ideas for the future · inspiration · slice of life · writer's notebook

Teaching Writing, Learning Writing

As I get ready for the March SOLSC, I'm thinking about ways to support writers when ideas, energy and inspiration waver.

minilesson · sketching · storytelling · writing workshop

A Step Back, A Leap Forward

Sometimes the most effective way to help writers leap ahead, is to slow things down and take a step back.

authors · writer identity · writers · writing workshop

Discovering and Developing Student Writer Identity

For writers to grow, they must develop writer identities. How do we help them do that?

assessment · challenges · narrative · observations · writing workshop

Making the Most of Pre-Assessments

 We spend a week or so sharing stories, and building excitement for writing stories. We hand out notebooks with fanfare, and writers happily personalize them. They brainstorm ideas for stories they could write. And then we stand in front of the class and explain that today is the day we want each of them to… Continue reading Making the Most of Pre-Assessments

charts · scaffolding charts · writing workshop · writing workshop routines

Sometimes we only write in writing workshop

My sixth graders have been busy drafting their feature articles this week, and I had a series of mini lessons planned to begin each writing workshop day. My students, however, had other ideas.

digital writing · olw · slice of life · Slice of Life Story Challenge · SOLSC Classroom Challenge · writing workshop

Keeping a writing blog: taking our writing workshop online

With the  Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge  just around the corner, perhaps some of you are thinking more than ever about starting a class blog just for writing.    Over the past few years, we have taken our writer's notebook  online in my classroom, not just for the month of March, but for the entire… Continue reading Keeping a writing blog: taking our writing workshop online

conferences · conventions · editing · publishing

Does “Published” Need to be “Perfect?”

There's a reason for second and third editions of really great books--a writer's work is never done, and is certainly never, ever perfect.