In my job as a literacy consultant, I work mostly with teachers and administrators, not students. While I sometimes miss the kids, I really love getting to serve the grown-ups in the system because we are all learners, and sometimes – heck, way too often – we spend all of our energy worrying about how […]
The paradoxical truth about teaching is that you can be an excellent teacher to all students only by being an excellent teacher to one student at a time.
In my last post, I introduced my goal for the school year: to be more deliberate about having students engage in meaningful reflection throughout every step of the writing process. As I have been working toward this goal, I have found that encouraging the type of deep reflection that we want students to do requires […]
If you were to get inside my head on my way home from school on a given day, you might hear an internal dialogue that goes something like this… 5th hour was a total mess today. I could just feel a vibe from my students that they were not understanding the argumentative writing technique I […]
In our writing classrooms, 2020 has been a year full of surprise. In Pennsylvania, we had a warm, nearly snowless winter and sudden, snappy late frosts in in the spring, so it’s been a year of surprises in the garden just outside my back door as well. Recently, I started taking some photos of striking […]
Screencast author’s notes are the perfect way to build a triangle of communication between parents, students, and the teacher! (And on the very, very most practical level, it gives me a class period at my desk to make sure everyone has submitted a best draft on time while students work!) Here are some resources to […]
Today is an important day, a day all teachers cherish. Graduation. How remarkable to be able to share in this milestone year after year, class after class. What a privilege to take some small part in the upbringing and education of so many wonderful young people moving up and onto the next steps of their […]
When an attempt at motivating a student goes wrong, professional positivity is a must.
How to use three questions to prompt metacognition
moving writers 