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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Nov 19

The Color Conversation: A Classroom Strategy That Actually Gets Teens Talking

How do you get high schoolers to open up and share something real? If your students are anything like mine, they tend to deflect, joke, or suddenly become very interested in the ceiling when it’s time to make personal connections to literature.

So earlier this week, I tricked them—gently—into opening up with a “color conversation.”

The setup was simple: a pile of sticky notes and a handful of colored Sharpies. Before showing the prompts, I told students to grab one marker. Then I revealed the color-coded questions:

Green = Goodbyes: Who is someone you’ve had to say goodbye to?

Red = Bravery: When have you had to be brave?

Purple = Fear: When have you felt afraid?

Orange = Hope: What are some of your hopes for the future?

These emotions connect to the memoir we’re reading together, and because my students are English language learners, I also provided sentence stems to support fluency. I set a 7-minute timer and told them to create and post as many sticky notes as they could. For a bit of motivation, the table with the most notes earned a trip to the class snack bucket.

When the timer dinged, we took a silent gallery walk. Of course, silence didn’t last long. A few whispers broke through: “Wait—whose house caught on fire?” or “Hey, who’s from Ciudad?” While I reminded them there was no pressure to identify their notes, most students did. They wanted to.

The best part? This activity works for any pre- or post-reading moment where students might hesitate to go deeper. And I’m saving the sticky notes. When it’s time for them to write their own memoirs and someone inevitably says, “I don’t have anything to write about,” I’ll point to their own words on the wall—a whole collage of lived experiences waiting to become stories.

Kelly Virgin is a WCWP teacher leader who teaches high school English for the Kennett Consolidated School District.

Jul 22

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From the Classroom: What Does Real-World Writing Look Like?

By Tricia Ebarvia

Speaking on a panel at the NCTE Annual Convention last fall, author Cris Crutcher commented, “Reading Shakespeare is an academic exercise. It’s not one that’s going to get me to love reading.” Though I disagree with him about Shakespeare―I think studying Shakespeare can give us tremendous insight into who we are as human beings and speak to us in profound ways―his remark did give me pause. How many of the things we assign―books, writing assignments―are no more than academic exercises? Read more

Oct 20

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Grammar Matters: Lessons, Tips, & Conversations Using Mentor Texts, K-6

If you or your students find grammar a dull or tedious subject, then Grammar Matters is a must have for your professional bookshelf.

At the Philadelphia Reading Council’s Fall Event at St. Joseph’s University, Lynne Dorfman and Diane Dougherty engaged educators in a “let’s talk, let’s practice, let’s learn” style workshop to model ways of delivering grammar instruction using mentor texts. From prepositions and participles to pronouns and punctuation, Lynne and Diane led participants through activities, conversations, and Your Turn Lessons that highlighted the importance of teaching grammar and conventions of writing in ways that empower students, enable them to become more confident and proficient in their writing and communication skills, and embark on a lifelong journey of loving the sound, the power and the importance of words.

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Sep 8

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Celebrating International Literacy Day

By Lynne R. Dorfman

International Literacy Day, celebrated this year on Monday, September 8th, helps us revitalize our commitment to the nurturing of literacy lives – both children and adults – by focusing attention on literacy successes in our classroom, school, community, and networks on twitter, facebook, and other social media forms. This year’s theme, “Lift Off to Literacy,” inspires students to shoot for the stars. We ask you to share the message that building a literacy habit takes just a little time each day.   Read more

Sep 7

It’s our Blogiversary! Highlights from Our First Year

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

Aug 19

Why I Love Teaching

By Jolene Borgese

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of teaching a ten day writing course to middle school students at the PAWLP Youth Writing Project. I had run the first Youth Writing Project on campus with about 50 writers and six teachers. We weren’t sure what we were doing back then but we knew we were on to something big! It was a success that bloomed into a huge project for 30 years.

This summer, my 12 writers were a mixed bag of pre-adolescents who wanted to come to writing camp, and others whose parents had signed them up.  They all made the best of it. They caught my enthusiasm for writing, and, in their preteen coolness, actually showed they liked my activities. Read more

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