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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Feb 17

Energizing for the Long Haul

By Molly Leahy

            “We’re closed” I announced in rapid-fire snow chain speak. My student teacher’s disbelief and disappointment rang clearly over the phone. “Again? Ok,” she sighed, reminding me of someone I used to be.

            I felt like saying, “Oh you have a lot to learn about snow days.” After teaching for twenty years, I love a good snow day to catch up on bills, sleep, and some cross-country skiing.  There are closets to clean, tax papers to organize, and books to read. Sometimes a snowcation energizes me by restoring work-life balance. Other times, the snow day provides additional hours to respond to students’ writing. This feeling of accomplishment or just balance allows us to return to our very demanding profession with renewed vigor.

            But what happens when snow days pile up, blocking the flow and rhythm of teacher and student energy alike? Read more

Jan 26

Try Express-Lane Editing… It Works!

By Lynne R. Dorfman

We can’t just hunt for errors; we need to celebrate what we are doing right.

– Jeff Anderson 

     After reading both of Jeff Anderson’s books, Everyday Editing and Mechanically Inclined, I started to think deeply about the concept of showing students what is right instead of asking them to correct what is wrong. Jeff focuses on correctness, asking students to look at mentor sentences and passages in the books they are reading including textbooks and independent reads. His “Express-Lane” editing system is inviting for students and provides a meaning-based process to help students proofread their writing and shape their own writing.  As Jeff cautions us, checklists aren’t always meaningful – students simply check off the items on the list.

     So how do you get students to engage in editing to reinforce the habit of becoming the first and last editor of their own work in order to communicate clearly and effectively? Read more

Dec 16

Moving Students Forward as Readers Writers and Thinkers

By Sarah Agran

      ‘Tis the season of gifts and thankfulness. This made me reflect on the students who have come to me over the years, already excellent readers and writers. I have tended to view these students as a gift, allowing for more time to be spent on the students who need more support. In interviews and meetings with administrators, I am constantly asked, “What are you doing to move the “Close to Proficient” students to “Proficient.” Nobody ever asks, “What are you doing for that bored kid reading two grade levels ahead?” However, these students are just as deserving of the gift of my time and attention, as their needier peers so how do I help these “gifted” students move forward? Read more

Dec 9

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The Core Six

 by Nora Ziegler

            This summer I began to worry about how I needed to change my teaching strategies to help my third grade students meet the challenges of the Common Core, so I did what I always do – I found a book chock full of great ideas I could implement in my classroom.  That book was The Core 6: Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core by Silver, Dewing, and Perini, published by ASCD in 2012.  What a goldmine!  As Heidi Hayes- Jacobs says in the forward, this book is actually an edu-toolkit with instructional strategies that should be implemented at all grade levels.  Here are briefs on each of the strategies: Read more

Nov 18

Full Circle

By Jolene Borgese

      I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe people come in and out of our lives for a reason and a few stick around forever. I am most curious about the people who come in and out our lives and then return years later. I haven’t figured out the reason, but I suspect I never will.

      This semester I have been teaching graduate school and presenting professional development (for the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project) at two very different schools. There seems to be an invisible thread running through all these very different teachers I’ve met.  They are young, old, privileged, struggling, working at stellar schools, and schools that lack sufficient books. All of these teachers have a common need that I had first addressed 30 some years ago – writing instruction strategies, specifically revision strategies. Read more

Nov 11

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Making it Manageable: Feedback at Every Step

by Tricia Ebarvia

      Conferring with students can be exhausting.  Sometimes a single conference can take 10-15 minutes, and if you have 100+ students, conferring is also incredibly time consuming. Time spent conferring with students is time away from whole class instruction, curricular planning, and much-needed grading. But feedback from conferring is invaluable.  When I was in the Writing Institute two years ago, I emailed Penny Kittle for some advice.  I was struggling with how to fit all the elements of the workshop model outlined in her book Write Beside Them.  When I mentioned reducing time for conferring, her response was unequivocal.  “Conferring is our most powerful teaching time,” she responded. “Everyone learns best in the context of their own writing piece, so we have to work it into practice.”

Still, time is always the issue.  Read more

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