Narrative writing. What is it? From the perspective of an elementary school teacher, it’s the first genre of writing you teach of the school year. And it’s always the personal narrative. Students brainstorm and write about their trips to Disneyland, the beach, or playing video games for hours on end. While students should write about …
Category: Writing
Down and Dirty Data Analysis
Green is good. Red is bad. Here’s what they taught me in “coaching college” about how to read data. Reading vertically indicates the teacher’s problem. Reading horizontally indicates a student’s problem. So, Harpo needs some additional help in all language arts areas. However, in the vocabulary category, it appears that the teacher needs to examine …
The Case for Blogging in the Classroom
My blogging output has certainly suffered as I’ve been finishing up my last semester of graduate school. I’ll be all done December 5th when I take the comprehensive exam to receive a masters degree in Education Policy and a California Administrative Credential. I thought I might combine my blogging and my graduate work by sharing …
An Ideal Language Arts Curriculum
Kevin Hodgson lays out what he considers to be an ideal language arts curriculum. Please read the entire post. However, the tenets he puts forth are: Writing to Learn Including listening and speaking (as well as reading and writing) A “Stakes Approach” (Moving from low-stakes like journal writing to high stakes like publishing and performance) …
Teaching Persuasive Writing
When teaching writing it’s important to show students how to do it and show them good examples of that genre of writing. Our fifth graders recently had to write a multi-paragraph essay on whether or not to support the Revolutionary War from the point of view of the colonists. To write this prompt well one …
L.A. Youth (Teen Newspaper) Needs Help
Background L.A. Youth is a teen newspaper that goes out for free to all the high schools and middle schools in the Los Angeles area. It was founded to counteract censorship in high school newspapers and includes articles from teens all across L.A. including students in foster care and others who find a positive outlet …
10 Myths of Writer’s Workshop: Part 4 of 4
Here are all the myths with visuals from my presentation at Western Avenue Elementary…
10 Myths of Writer’s Workshop: Part 3 of 4
Myth #7: Where’s the beef? I’ve written about this before as well. Focusing on structure before starting to write can lead to bland, generic paragraphs and reduce writing to formula instead of communication. Instead, I recommend just writing and then molding that writing into a structure through revising. By frontloading too much information in the …
10 Myths of Writer’s Workshop: Part 2 of 4
Myth #4: Drawing is for babies. I wrote about this already. Drawing is a valid form of prewriting and writing (see cave paintings). By allowing students to transition from drawings to labels and then sentences, you make writing relevant. Bringing visuals into the writing process also sparks imagination and allows non-writers and English Language Learners …
10 Myths of Writer’s Workshop: Part 1 of 4
Before teaching a writing lesson, I introduce myself to students as a writer. I tell students that I like to write. I tell them I write outside of school just because I want to. (Insert audible gasps here). Since I have a sense of myself as a writer in the “real world” it bothers me …