Topic: Writing

Before we were teachers, we were readers−readers who understand the power reading has to change our lives from the new characters we meet, the new places we visit, and the new lessons we learn.

Writing and teaching writing can be intimidating. It is hard work, and it takes time. Quickwrites offer an easy and manageable writing experience that helps both students and teachers find their voices and develop their confidence.

A wrap up of the PLC series posts from 2017-18 year.

In this video, Allison & Rebekah explain how simple it can be to get the creative juices flowing with inspiration from 'analysis in the wild'.

I’ve been asking myself, “How can I create writing curriculum that is accessible to all learners, one in which they are truly motivated to uncover new stories they are driven to share?” I want my students to grow their ideas about different perspectives in the world and discover insight into their own identities.

My theory as a writing teacher this past year was this: getting my students to reflect on and talk about the revisions they were trying—to ask them to “get a little ‘meta’”—would help foster these identities and build a culture of revision in my classroom.

Your first draft is like a dark room and our questions can show you the parts we’re curious to know more about—the places to shine your flashlight. It’s your choice as a writer which questions tug at your pen the most, but choose one or two, and cast your beam in those dark corners.

If you read aloud regularly to your students, you know: there is no time in the day quite like read aloud time. A good read aloud can bring a group together like nothing else, can provide a foundation of camaraderie, trust, and respect in a classroom.

Patricia Vitale-Reilly's book Supporting Struggling Learners: 50 Instructional Moves for the Classroom Teacher provides practical strategies for empowering students with the right tools to grow and learn. In this video, Patricia talks about providing strong study skills.

In what ways are certain topics treated as taboo in our classrooms and why? How often do we avoid talking and writing about race because we fear what others might say? If we avoid controversial issues, how will our students learn how to have civic discussion of such issues?

In this video, Allison & Rebekah explain how they've shied away from the bread and butter literary analysis approach, and instead push their students to write with passion and authority about topics they care about, effectively bringing their whole selves to their writing.

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.

This is what we want for our students: the ability to look at multiple sources and triangulate meaning from a variety of perspectives.

In this video, author Sunday Cummins explains how we want students to ask questions and then actively seek out answers by locating and reading or viewing multiple sources—articles, books, videos, photographs, infographics. Then, we want students to articulate what they've learned.

Whatever your teaching constraints may be, choice and joy can find a place your classroom.

Here, Jen has created a handy downloadable chart to illustrate the connections between goals in The Reading Strategies Book and The Writing Strategies Book.

I have a confession: I love to cut. Almost nothing pleases me more than to read through a manuscript and find entire chapters that can be placed under the guillotine

Many students are already social media experts. Tapping into their knowledge to channel them to try new books and to reflect on their work can be powerful.