Welcome to the Podcast
Empower Students Now
10 Ways to Bring Mindfulness into Your Life and Digital Classroom
Do you often feel overwhelmed with all you have to do? Maybe you feel scattered and aren’t sure what to focus your energy on. Mindfulness in your...
5 Mini Lessons to Teach Writing Explicitly to Support Struggling Writers
Have you ever felt you weren’t supporting a group of students with writing? Maybe these students had IEPs, maybe they didn’t, maybe they were the...
15 Ways to Engage Students in Meaningful Discussions in Person and Online
There are so many discussion tech tools available to teachers these days! Parlay, Jamboard, Back Channel, Voxer and even Google Slides and Docs can...
How to Actually Accomplish Your Goals for Teachers and Students
I’m a goal setting master. However, like many other humans out there (maybe you?), I lose motivation quickly and eventually my goals disappear into...
Mentor Texts for Writing and Discussions About Race
Our classrooms are microcosms of the society we live in. The sad reality (that many have a hard time admitting) is race matters in our society and...
How to Quit Grading So Much…
Amanda Write Now · How To Quit Grading So Much And Make It More Meaningful So, you want to know how to quit grading so much? Or maybe you just want...
How to Teach Reading and Writing Workshop from a Distance
Amanda Write Now · How To Teach Reading And Writing Workshop From A Distance Many teachers are wondering, can I still teach reading and...
Distance Learning Community Building Activities for Middle and High School
Amanda Write Now · 15 Community Building Distance Learning Activities Middle Schoolers Will LOVE! Students in our class need to feel that their...
My Best Tips for Managing a Book Club Unit
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...
Want to Get Started With Workshop? Do This One Simple Yet Powerful Thing!
Does this sound like you? You learn a new idea, a new way of teaching, a new strategy and you're all in. You become so convinced THIS is the way to...
How I Cut My Grading Time by Ten Hours
I teach 4 sections of English with a total of 128 students. Grading that many papers every few months is a huge endeavor and can overtake a...
ONE Crucial Thing You Might Not Be Doing When Planning Writing Units and How To Start Doing It!
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...
13 Ways to Motivate Resistant Writers
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...
The Truth About Programs: 4 Programs That Changed Me That I Eventually Quit
Quitting programs. I've followed and quit so many programs in my life! Diets, work out routines, parenting guides, teaching curriculum. Programs are...
What does workshop actually look like in a secondary classroom?
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...
Your First Mini Lesson of the School Year: How Workshop is Like Playing Fortnite Battle Royale
There are so many things we need to accomplish the first week of school. We need to get to the content but we also need to teach students about how...
Life Changing Podcasts and Books for Teachers
Teaching is such a demanding job that requires constant energy. And when school ends abruptly it can leave us feeling empty and looking for ways to fill the void. Here is a big lists of podcasts and books that can help!
Noise Levels in the Workshop Classroom: What They Are, How to Teach Them & How to Hold Students Accountable to Them
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...
5 Common Distracting Student Behaviors During Writing Workshop & What to do About Them
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...
How to Write Your Own Mini Lessons
Teachers are busy and don’t have time to go looking for mini lessons. If you do have time, here are The Best Places to Find Mini Lessons Online. However, if you you don’t have time, like most teachers on planet Earth, then you’ll want to come up with your own mini lessons.
5 Exciting Ways to Introduce Your Writing Unit!
Table of contents: Give Student ChoiceMake it a ContestThrow a PartyPublish Student WritingUse Last Resort TacticsSo you want to excite students...
Places to Find Mentor Texts That You May Not Have Thought Of!
The phrase “mentor text” is pretty new. Ralph Fletcher, a guru in the writing instruction world defines mentor texts as, “Any writing that you can learn from…”, this definition is so satisfying. It’s satisfying because often, one of the biggest challenges about being a writing workshop teacher is finding mentor texts. But, this definition opens a plethora of texts up to us.
5 Fun Activities to do with Your Students the Day After Coming Back from a Long Break
Coming back to school after having two weeks off (or the summer off) can be really rough for students and teachers. The last thing anyone wants to do is get right back to work the first day back. It’s important for us to reconnect with our students, have some fun and listen to what they’ve been up to the last few weeks/months. Here are five activities that can help you do just that!
I’m More than an English Teacher
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...