Topic: Middle School

For many of our students, sports, video games, television, movies, and pop music form the fabric of their dominant culture. Just as we would never tell a student that she could not write about mariachis, we might consider biting out tongues when she wants to write about whatever latest heartthrob is on the top ten. Our students need to know that we value their lives, all of what goes on in their lives, in order to feel that they can bring and share those lives with their writing in the classroom.

The goal of our new book, How to Become a Better Writing Teacher, is to help you become really good at teaching writing.

In our forthcoming book, How to Become a Better Writing Teacher, we focus on the question of how to help teachers become good writing teachers.

Providing young children with lots of opportunities and encouragement to read unfamiliar books helps them to become adventurous, confident readers who are highly engaged meaning-makers.

The goal of The Book Love Foundation is to put books in the hands of teachers of teenagers. We aim instruction toward increasing volume, stamina, and joy in reading in middle and high school.

Student engagement is crucial for students to learn to write well. When students are engaged, they’re more likely to learn.

Highly effective writing teachers teach with mentor texts. In direct instruction lessons, teachers explain the techniques to students.

State standards are a guide to all that we ask kids to do as writers and readers. They are not meant to be out of context as a stand-alone lesson.

The words we use to talk about writing and revision matter. Some things to consider from Heinemann Authors, Chris Hall and Mike Anderson.

When our students are writing with optimism, all sorts of questions and possibilities stream through their minds.

If you're hoping to attend some virtual PD this year to lift your practice—and your spirits—we have many options for you! However, we know that decision fatigue is real and too many choices can be overwhelming.

We can prepare our students for academic writing tasks when we invite them to make the kind of writing real writers make.

Clearly, it is time to stop doing what we have always done with our middle and high school students while expecting different results.

If you, like me, suffer from bouts of the Blahs, I encourage you to develop your own plan too. To take care of our students, to do our part in ensuring Leticia and other young people like her don’t fall into the Abyss, we must first stay clear of it ourselves.

Last fall, I wrote about the Blahs, a predictable time of year when I struggle with energy, motivation, and self-doubt. A friend pointed out that our students battle their own Blahs as well.

In this video, Amy VanDerwater explains that if we are able to harness a love of poetry and use it as a way to demonstrate writing techniques across genres, students gain a better understanding of writing overall.

if you have a good readers workshop going in your classroom I give you a hi-five and say keep it up! There are, though, a few caveats that might cause you to consider the whole class novel approach...

Poetry is something that is happening now, everywhere, and we need to bring it into the classroom. In Poems Are Teachers, Amy introduces the skills and techniques involved in writing a poem and how it connects to writing across all genres.