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 that my website definitely gives the impression that all […]
Blog
The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Workshop
Don’t have time to read this? Listen to it here! 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 an […]
10 Ways to Make Grading Writing Easier
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. Reading their writing can actually be quite pleasurable. It’s slapping a […]
Mentor Texts for Middle School by Genre+Summaries and Skills to Teach
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 includes grade levels, a summary of the text and skills you could teach. Note: This article doesn’t cover […]
Teach Students HOW to Use Mentor Texts
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. Thus…this post. I came up with a five step process […]
We Need to Stop Neglecting Fiction
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 those pages! Or maybe some of us don’t do it because we feel it’s just […]
What I’m doing the very first day of school might surprise you…and why you should try it too.
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 my plan book 8/14/2017: introduce self, read My Name by […]
10 Reasons Secondary Teachers Should Try Reading & Writing Workshop
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 are on the fence about whether to try reading and […]