by Amanda | Oct 28, 2018 | Assessment, Podcast, Writing Units
729SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Don’t have time to read this article? Listen here! Grading hundreds of papers is the bane of an English teacher’s existence. Don’t get me wrong. I love being able to get a thorough look into the minds of my...
by Amanda | Sep 23, 2018 | Featured Post, Mentor Texts, Podcast
6.9kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It Every writing unit should start with mentor texts. Students need many examples of the type of writing we expect them to do. In this article, I’ve compiled my favorite middle school mentor texts. Each mentor text...
by Amanda | Sep 23, 2018 | Mentor Texts, Podcast
650SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Most writing workshop teachers know what a mentor text is (examples of writing in books, short stories, articles, poems etc.). But, what about how to use a mentor text? When I scoured the internet for the answer to this...
by Amanda | Aug 26, 2018 | Featured Post, Make Writing Fun, Podcast, Writing Units
740SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Don’t Have Time to Read? Fiction writing is neglected in English classes everywhere for many reasons. We don’t have enough time. Or we are afraid students might produce pages and pages and pages and...
by Amanda | Aug 5, 2018 | Back to School, Management, Podcast
603SHAREShare Tweet Pin It I let students socialize the first day of school. Read on to find out why… After reading this important article by Write On with Miss G (which I highly recommend you read), I thought back to my first day of school, last...
by Amanda | Aug 2, 2018 | Back to School, Podcast, Secondary Teachers
869SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Don’t have time to read this article? Listen on iTunes instead! We all have our own curriculum, our own teaching teams, our own way of doing things but it’s summer vacation and time to ponder other options! This...
by Amanda | Jul 30, 2018 | Back to School, Featured Post, Management, Podcast, Writing Independence
412SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Don’t have time to read all of this?!?! Listen below:) So, some of your students aren’t writing during writing? Maybe they are just sitting there staring off into space. Or maybe they are sneaking onto their phone,...
by Amanda | Jul 18, 2018 | Mini Lessons, Podcast, Reading
8.3kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It English teachers struggle to fit it all in. We want to teach the novels we love while also allowing the freedom and choice that reading workshop provides. Can we do both? Yes! Keep reading to find out how…First a bit of...
by Amanda | Apr 28, 2018 | End of the Year, Make Writing Fun, Podcast
737SHAREShare Tweet Pin It The end of the school year can be chaotic, so keeping students engaged and having fun is incredibly important. I have used the project detailed here every year I’ve taught and it never fails to keep students loving their...
by Amanda | Feb 4, 2018 | Holiday Writing, Make Writing Fun, Reading
Share Tweet Pin It Teaching students how to identify themes in literature can be challenging! It takes a lot of abstract thought which students may not even be capable of yet. Why not use the Valentine’s Day holiday to your advantage? Often,...
by Amanda | Jan 15, 2018 | Conferencing, Differentiation, Podcast
491SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Teaching writing is tough and differentiating writing instruction is tougher! Student writers have so many varying needs. What do you do when Steven can crank out a well organized, thoughtful literary essay in twenty minutes...
by Amanda | Dec 1, 2017 | Holiday Writing, Podcast
574SHAREShare Tweet Pin It November, December, April, May and June are months full of fun and anticipation for the upcoming break! It can be incredibly challenging to keep things running smoothly and continue the teaching and learning during this time....
by Amanda | Oct 7, 2017 | Mini Lessons, Podcast, Reading, Routines, Writing Units
6.8kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It Writing and reading workshop are powerful methods to teach English. But, how can secondary teachers, who have less than an hour with their students, do it all?!?! I think I have found the solution! Here are the two different...
by Amanda | Sep 21, 2017 | Featured Post, Podcast, Technology
5.2kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It In the last three years Google Classroom has definitely transformed my teaching practices. It is such a simple system to use. At first I used it in obvious ways, create a Google Doc, type directions in that Doc and post it as...
by Amanda | Sep 5, 2017 | Back to School, Management, Mini Lessons, Podcast, Writing Units
6.2kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It This blog post outlines exactly what I did to launch both reading and writing workshop in my classroom. If you are an English teacher wanting to teach using the writing and reading workshop model,...