Mentor Texts for Middle School by Genre+Summaries and Skills to Teach
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...
We Need to Stop Neglecting Fiction
734SHAREShare 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...
My Students Don’t Write During Writing
363SHAREShare 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,...
5 Ways to Use Google Classroom During Writing Workshop
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...
10 Ways to Publish Student Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide
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...
10 Ways to Use PowToon in the English Classroom
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...
Ten Places to Find Mentor Texts
1.5kSharesShare Tweet Pin It What is a mentor text anyway? A mentor text is any text used to model the type of writing your students are learning. Mentor texts are the backbone of writing workshop because students need to see what the pros do, to get...
Mini Lesson Step By Step Part One
129SHAREShare Tweet Pin It So what is a mini lesson anyway? To put it plainly, a mini lesson is a brief lesson modeling a targeted writing skill. In this series I’ll break it down into small, easy to chew bits. Join me for this three part series...
50 Ways to Get Kids Begging to Write More
196SHAREShare Tweet Pin It Do your students moan and groan when it is time for writing? Does it make you sick to your stomach when that happens? Does it make you feel like you are failing as a writing teacher? You are not alone! Believe me, it happens...