Sep 15
By Janice Ewing
On a mid-summer evening in 2013, a small group of PAWLP Fellows sat down with plates of pasta to devour and an idea to develop—a blog that would invite and encourage all PAWLP fellows to write, share, and connect. The idea had been simmering for a while but was finally ready to come to a full boil. Read more
We are celebrating the one year anniversary of the PAWLP blog, and what a year it’s been! To celebrate our one year “blogiversary,” we’ve collected some posts from this past year that may be particularly useful to teachers as a new school year begins.
So in case you missed them, here are a “baker’s dozen” – thirteen blog posts with some practical tips and inspiration. We hope that you enjoy reading our blog and encourage you to comment, ask questions, and share your own experiences. We would love to hear from you! Read more
By Janice Ewing
On the first day of summer
with much on our plates
a group got together
to discuss the Six Traits
For PAWLPers a day
of immersion in writing
is our kind of fun
our kind of exciting
Jun 15
By Lynne R. Dorfman
Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery.
– Henry Miller
We all want our students to think deeply about their writing and reading, learn how to assimilate information, and in some way take the new learning and make it their own. In writing workshop, the teacher becomes the facilitator of creative options and the students become innovators, applying knowledge in new ways.
By Maryellen Kenney
There is never enough time in a teacher’s life. We are highly functioning, incredibly dedicated professionals who, at some point, come to accept that there are only 24 hours in our day and we really need 25. Over time, we hone our craft to include only the most important, most valuable practices that best serve us. Reflection is one of those essential practices.
Most people think reflection occurs after the fact, at the end of the unit, after the first marking period is over, during semester break over the summer. It can and does happen then, but not only then. Reflection is ongoing.
By Judy Jester
The first time I wrote a piece for Voices in the Middle, I intended merely to document the nuts and bolts of the annual poetry slam I run at my school. It was fun. Here’s how you do it. But that’s more of the Instructor magazine type article. NCTE expects you to explain why such an endeavor is worthwhile. In attempting to clarify this for others, I discovered it myself. The poetry competition isn’t only fun; it fosters better writing as well. In what eventually resulted in Audience and Revision: Middle Schoolers Slam Poetry (Feb. 1997), I documented the results of interviews with students who said that they revised their poems far more because they knew they would be performing them in front of their peers. Read more
