In this episode of the Empower Students Now podcast, Amanda addresses a common issue faced by teachers: students who are disengaged. Drawing from personal experiences as a teacher and a parent of a neurodivergent child, the Amanda discusses the importance of moving...
In this episode of the Empower Students Now podcast, Amanda discusses how to handle apathetic and defiant students in the classroom. She shares her personal experience as a parent of a neurodivergent child and suggests a collaborative approach that involves building...
Managing a book club unit is tough! Some teachers may feel so overwhelmed by all the moving pieces that they avoid book clubs altogether. This is completely understandable. During a book club unit, students are reading different books, analyzing a wide range of...
We all have resistant writers in our classrooms. This is a fact of teaching life. In the video below learn 13 different ways that you can help resistant writers become much more motivated. Not all of these ways will work. You need to try different combinations with...
I get a lot of emails every week asking a wide range of questions. One question that seems to come up over and over again is, what does workshop actually look like in a secondary classroom? Here's the simple answer: workshop can look however you want it to look. You...
Kids love to talk to each other, they are human and humans are social! In a classroom of thirty plus secondary students how can we balance allowing that innate need to talk with maintaining a quiet, productive atmosphere? The answer: noise levels. If you are a middle...
Teaching writing is so hard! There are many reasons why, but one of the main reasons is distracting student behavior! With a plan in place, your ability to handle the distracting student behavior can improve. No matter what though, it is important to realize that...
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...
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...
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 looking up a word...