Archive for November 2012
Finding Freedom in Poetry Writing
From the desk of Katie M… When people think of poetry they always think rhyme but that’s not always true. There are many different types of poems like free verse, cinquain, haiku, lyrical, concrete and so on. None of those besides lyric actually has to rhyme. This is important to tell your writers! I…
Read MoreThe Gift of Reading
From the desk of Alice… In this first year of Common Core, I am seeing and hearing many stressed educators trying to make sense of what they need to be doing. Rest assured, one thing we need to continue to do is encourage a love of learning as we dip into this new territory in…
Read MorePublishing
From the desk of Carol C…. Publishing was hard for me for a long time, and I never had it down to a science. I think it had something to do with the way writing was taught when I first started teaching. Assign the topic, students write, students turn in their papers, teachers correct the…
Read MoreWriting Poetry
From the desk of Carol C… The Common Core doesn’t directly list writing poetry as one of its standards. So why teach it if it’s not in there? “How do I tell thee? Let me count the ways.” First of all teaching students how to write poetry requires that they understand what poetry is and…
Read MoreStep Into the Classroom
From the desk of Hope… Step into a classroom in which students are preparing to be college and career ready. In this classroom students are merging reading, writing, thinking as they pose problems that are real or problems they foresee in the future. They think about what they want to know more about and subsequently…
Read MoreConstruct…Discover, Try Again
From the Desk of Tina… The little girl reread her sentence and erased the words again. “That … doesn’t … sound right,” she mumbled. She flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder in frustration. Her eyes moved from her paper to the board, back to the paper. She placed the paper on her desk…
Read MoreTackling the Writing Conference
From the desk of Carol C… Tackling the writing conference is one of the most rewarding and unrewarding parts of the writing workshop. It’s rewarding because you can see the fruits of your labor. You can see the progress that the writer has made. You can pat yourself on the back and say “job well…
Read MoreWriting Mini-Lessons
From the desk of Carol C… When you implement Writer’s Workshop, you are going to include many mini-lessons across the year. Mini-lessons are just what the name implies…short lessons that focus on a writing strategy, an author’s craft, or a convention . To see how “mini” they are, look at the following schedule for a…
Read MoreLet Them Believe
From the desk of Kris… A picture is worth a thousand words…..well, okay, for a kindergartener maybe it’s not a thousand words…but it certainly can be worth many words. If you ask any kindergartener about his picture, he is sure to tell you a lengthy story! But does drawing a picture and telling a story…
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