Topic: Writing

With thoughtful planning, writing workshops can thrive in any classroom, even when time is tight.

Writing workshop is a journey. Each unit, conversation, and shared moment adds to your understanding of what your writers need and how best to support them.

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.

Learn how to integrate writing workshop with your core curriculum using realistic schedules, aligned routines, and low-lift classroom strategies.

The writing workshop model empowers learners to take ownership of their craft while positioning teachers as mentors and guides.

A routine for exploring works of art and other interesting things: What do you see? What do you think about that? What does it make you wonder?

Discover how a research-backed, comprehensive approach to literacy helps educators align resources, close instructional gaps, and deliver responsive, effective teaching. Download the free ebook to learn how to build a more impactful literacy program.

What are the ways you can use A.I. as a teacher? How can students use A.I. to improve their work? Including title suggestions and revisions, A.I.-generated book covers, reflective rubrics, and brainstorming.

A framework for working with A.I.: write first, struggle second, prompt third, question fourth, and end with reflection and transparency.

When your writers have agency to make decisions, write at their level of ability and move at their own pace, they show you what they can do, and what they have not yet learned to do, as writers.

The writing process is a structured series of steps all writers use to develop their work. Let’s explore the six different stages of writing.

To empower students to survive and live empathetically, invite them to write about moments of discrimination. Included is a student example and assignment outline.

Writing minilessons are a powerful tool for teachers, helping students to grow as independent writers.

Writing workshop minilessons are meant as intervals for explicit, brief instruction in skills and strategies that then become part of a writer’s ongoing repertoire.

To teach writing well, it is important to know about qualities of the four major genres of writing.

Record-keeping systems allow you to consolidate data, study individual progress, track the frequency with which you meet with students, and easily access and update your data across time.

Here are six tools you can slowly introduce into your classroom writing center to support student independence.

This adapted excerpt from Every Kid a Writer offers insight into how giving writers an audience of real readers can reignite passion and interest.