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 […]
Writing Units
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 […]
How I Teach Reading & Writing Workshop in 54 Minutes
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 schedule options depending on if you are in a reading or a writing unit. In this article, […]
Launching Writing Workshop: The First 14 Days
This article 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, then this post is exactly what you’ve been looking for! You’ll find my exact lesson outline for 14 total school days. Students […]
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 this article I’ll present many options for publishing student writing, […]
Why You’re Probably Teaching Information Writing WRONG
Most secondary teachers I know, wonderful teachers who are friends of mine by the way, teach information/expository writing using essay assignments. Here’s how it usually goes: Read & annotate articles Write an essay in response to the articles Teach how to cite parts of the article in the essay Teach how to write a thesis/claim, introduction, supporting […]
5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing Units
1. Start with a Reading Workshop Unit It is incredibly powerful to teach a 2-3 week reading unit before a writing unit because it allows for the study of mentor texts. Students need to read the genre they are writing in. Therefore, I encourage you to ditch the whole class novel read alouds and instead use short stories, articles or picture […]
Realizations About Teaching Writing
Don’t have time to read? Listen to this article instead! I’ve been teaching writing workshop for four years now with no formal training. Last week I attended the Summer Writing Institute in NYC organized and facilitated by the leading think tank in writing instruction today, aka Lucy Calkins and her incredibly inspiring and talented crew. […]