by Amanda | Feb 21, 2019 | Assessment
2.7kSharesShare Tweet Pin It English teachers often default to essays, quizzes and tests as assessments. Figuring out creative ways to assess beyond this can be challenging. So, I’ve teamed up with some of my favorite blogging friends (see who...
by Amanda | Feb 10, 2019 | Beginners, Mini Lessons, Podcast
Teachers are busy and don’t have time to go looking for mini lessons. If you do have time, here are The Best Places to Find Mini Lessons Online. However, if you you don’t have time, like most teachers on planet Earth, then you’ll want to come up with...
by Amanda | Jan 26, 2019 | Make Writing Fun, Podcast, Writing Units
213SharesShare Tweet Pin It Table of contents: Give Student ChoiceMake it a ContestThrow a PartyPublish Student WritingUse Last Resort Tactics So you want to excite students about your upcoming writing unit? Before I wrote this post I asked some 7th and...
by Amanda | Jan 10, 2019 | Mentor Texts, Podcast
One of the biggest challenges many writing teachers face is finding quality mentor texts. But is it really all that big of a challenge when we look closely at what mentor texts really are? The phrase “mentor text” is pretty new. Ralph Fletcher, a guru in...
by Amanda | Dec 26, 2018 | Back to School, Holiday Writing, Make Writing Fun, Podcast
2.9kSharesShare Tweet Pin It Don’t have time to read? Listen to this post here… Coming back to school after having two weeks off (or the summer off) can be really rough for students and teachers. The last thing anyone wants to do is...
by Amanda | Dec 21, 2018 | Back to School, End of the Year, Make Writing Fun, Secondary Teachers
1.1kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It Sometimes we just need to have fun with our students and what better way than with simple classroom games? Having fun is important for many reasons some of which include: it builds community, it’s a stress reliever, it...
by Amanda | Dec 10, 2018 | Podcast, Secondary Teachers
Don’t have time to read? I received an email recently (I love receiving emails from teachers who read my blog!) asking me a really interesting question… Do you do workshop all year? I immediately yelled (in my mind) NO! In this moment, it occurred to me...
by Amanda | Nov 18, 2018 | Beginners, Featured Post, Management, Podcast, Secondary Teachers
Many secondary teachers, like you, are beginning to realize the power of running their English classes using writing workshop. Maybe you keep seeing references to it on Pinterest or in Facebook groups. Maybe a teacher friend is trying it and finding success. Or maybe...
by Amanda | Oct 28, 2018 | Assessment, Podcast, Writing Units
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 students and their writing abilities....
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
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 pressing question I found very little....
by Amanda | Aug 26, 2018 | Featured Post, Make Writing Fun, Podcast, Writing Units
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 we feel too guilty about not reading all of...
by Amanda | Aug 5, 2018 | Back to School, Management, Podcast
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 year. Here’s what’s written in...
by Amanda | Aug 2, 2018 | Back to School, Podcast, Secondary Teachers
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 article is meant for secondary teachers who...
by Amanda | Jul 30, 2018 | Back to School, Featured Post, Management, Podcast, Writing Independence
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, they’ll probably tell you they were...