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Episode 14: Seven Easy Ways to Support Student Writing in Any Content Area

…to become a writing teacher was this idea of the writing process. I think that for lots of people they were never taught this. So. A long time ago, I guess before the idea of a writing process was ever introduced, teachers would teach this way. They would assign a piece of writing to students and students would either go home and write it or they would write it in class and hand it in. The teacher would give it a grade and that would be the end of it. That was the end of the writing assignment. Whatever grade…

A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing

…most effective ways to improve student writing is to show them mentor texts, examples of excellent writing within the genre students are about to attempt themselves. Ideally, this writing would come from real publications and not be fabricated by me in order to embody the form I’m looking for. Although most experts on writing instruction employ some kind of mentor text study, the person I learned it from best was Katie Wood Ray in her book Study Driven (links to the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon). Since I want the writing to be high quality and the subject matter to be…

A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

…observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student’s understanding of how writing actually gets made. A Narrative Writing Unit Plan Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results….

How ELA and Special Ed Collaboration Can Produce Great Student Writing

…kind of collaborative practice between regular classroom writing teachers and learning specialists. If you’re part of a similar partnership, you may find some of these helpful in your work as well. Why Writing is Especially Challenging for Students with Learning Differences Writing is an incredibly complex task. It involves the instant integration of several components—handwriting and letter formation (and later typing), spacing and formatting on the page, spelling, grammar, sentence formation, adding punctuation—all while holding your ideas, and some sort of organizational scheme for those ideas, in your memory. It’s a difficult enough task for most students, who aren’t reading…

7 Easy Ways to Support Student Writing in Any Content Area

…and expected element of the recursive nature of the writing process. While we often have linear models of writing processes, the muddy reality of writing means we’re constantly going back and engaging in revision, even after publication. C. Watkins I really appreciate your podcast being attached to the article. After a long evening of grad classes and reading articles, it’s nice to switch up the delivery. My class discussion response: “7 Easy Ways to Support Student Writing in Any Content Area” was a wonderful explanation of ways to support students writing as I teach art. I love that the author…

BoomWriter: A Fun Twist on Collaborative Writing

…students are used to writing on their own, the collaborative aspect of BoomWriter will give them more exposure to the writing of their peers, and the competitive aspect will make many students up their writing game. If you’re looking for something to freshen up your writing instruction, give BoomWriter a try. ♦ Keep in touch. Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration—in quick, bite-sized packages—all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You’ll get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in…

13 Stunning Places to Publish Student Art and Writing

…submissions from students in grades 8-11 are considered for two full scholarships to Walnut Hill’s residential summer writing program. Illustration by Taylor Stevens Canvas editor-selected Age Range: 13-18 Accepts: fiction, poetry, plays, creative nonfiction, new media, cross-genre, art Website Submission Guidelines for Writers Submission Guidelines for Artists Published four times a year and run by an all-student editorial board, Canvas publishes high-quality student writing and cover art in a variety of formats: online, pdf, ebooks, and print books. Something else cool: They also feature sound files of authors reading their work and some video interviews with authors. Canvas has only…

Episode 49: Dialogue Journals

…yours. What are Dialogue Journals? GONZALEZ: So why don’t we just start by having you explain to us what exactly a dialogue journal is. GALARZA: OK, so my initial use of dialogue journals began when I took this position four years ago as the writing enrichment teacher, and the purpose really, in my mind, I didn’t really know that this was a thing. I just wanted to get to know my kids better, and I wanted to get them writing daily, and I had found in the past that giving them a writing prompt didn’t always get the good writing….

Why is my kid allowed to make spelling mistakes?

…writing was terrible because my primary teachers focused more on spelling, handwriting and presentation rather than the writing ideas which was given to us in order to present good writing. As I started my secondary school I found that I have to find my own ideas for writing, it took me a while to get the balance between good spelling and good writing.. As a teacher for early years I completely agree with you. When children are obsessed about spelling it often delays the flow of writing. Keeping the balance between encouraging writing, flow of thoughts and to love writing…