by Amanda | Aug 5, 2018 | Back to School, Management, Podcast
600SHAREShare 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
772SHAREShare 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
376SHAREShare 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
467SHAREShare 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
505SHAREShare 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,...
by Amanda | Aug 6, 2017 | Assessment, Featured Post, Publishing, Technology, Writing Units
Publishing student writing is the cornerstone of a successful writing workshop program. At the beginning of each of my writing units I tell students they will write many different drafts within a writing genre and pick one to revise intensely and then to publish. In...
by Amanda | Jul 30, 2017 | Back to School, Featured Post, Technology, Videos
2.3kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It PowToon is a fun and fairly easy video creation tool for teachers and students. The company already has an excellent blog post about how teachers can utilize this tool in their classrooms here. This blog post is about how...
by Amanda | Jul 17, 2017 | Back to School, Management, Podcast, Routines
1.7kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It Every teacher on the planet knows that the first weeks of school are all about routines, routines, routines and more routines. But, over time so many routines in our classrooms go overlooked. This guide discusses five...
by Amanda | Jun 9, 2017 | Podcast, Technology
1.4kSHAREShare Tweet Pin It Ever spend hours looking for YouTube videos to teach writing? Youtube channels for writing teachers are hard to find! YouTube is an incredible resource bank for writing teachers…but sometimes it can be annoying to sift...