by Amanda | Apr 20, 2023 | End of the Year, New Style Blog Post, New Style Podcast, Writing Units
Are you looking for fun and engaging writing projects for your students at the end of the school year? Look no further! In this episode, I share five writing projects that will keep your students motivated and excited about writing until the last day of school. You...
by Amanda | Jan 27, 2023 | Argumentative Writing, Podcast, Support for Struggling Writers, Technology, Writing Units
Amanda Write Now · 66. 11 Ways ChatGPT Can Help You Teach Argumentative Writing It’s about time for teachers to start their opinion, persuasive, or argumentative writing units (depending on the grade you teach). Most teachers realize that sample sentences and...
by Amanda | Aug 23, 2022 | Assessment, Equity, Podcast, Reading Units, Social Justice, Unit Planning, Writing Units
Share Tweet Pin It In this six-part series, I outline exactly how I’m rethinking my workshop classroom with an equity lens. You can find the other parts of this series here: Part 1: Rethinking Writing Workshop with Equity in Mind Part 2: Rethinking...
by Amanda | Dec 22, 2019 | Assessment, Differentiation, Podcast, Writing Units
Teachers are SUPER busy during the school year and need to be efficient when planning new writing units. It is absolutely necessary to find ways to save time. The thing is you are most likely missing one huge step before you even begin planning your lessons. Listen to...
by Amanda | Jan 26, 2019 | Make Writing Fun, Podcast, Writing Units
213SharesShare Tweet Pin It Table of contents: Give Student ChoiceMake it a ContestThrow a PartyPublish Student WritingUse Last Resort Tactics So you want to excite students about your upcoming writing unit? Before I wrote this post I asked some 7th and...
by Amanda | Oct 28, 2018 | Assessment, Podcast, Writing Units
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....
by Amanda | Aug 26, 2018 | Featured Post, Make Writing Fun, Podcast, Writing Units
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...
by Amanda | Oct 7, 2017 | Mini Lessons, Podcast, Reading, Routines, Writing Units
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...
by Amanda | Sep 5, 2017 | Back to School, Management, Mini Lessons, Podcast, Writing Units
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...
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 | Nov 4, 2016 | Podcast, Writing Units
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...
by Amanda | Oct 13, 2016 | Writing Units
Planning a unit can be time consuming but it doesn’t have to be. Planning a unit can actually be quite simple, especially if you plan as you go, based on the needs of the students in front of you. Below you’ll find 5 tips to help you plan your next writing...
by Amanda | Mar 3, 2016 | Writing Units
Many teachers think argumentative and persuasive writing are the same. Some would go as far as to say that persuasive writing has just turned into argumentative because of Common Core (not true). And where does opinion writing fall into all of this? First of all, if...
by Amanda | Oct 29, 2015 | Mini Lessons, Writing Units
Planning a writing unit can feel overwhelming. Many teachers feel stressed out by curricula put in front of them by their schools and districts with little to no training. It is difficult to sift through all the words to get to the good stuff. So let’s simplify things...
