This is day 8 of the Two Writing Teachers’ Slice of Life Challenge. It is really a writing challenge, but my personal challenge is to capture about 5 minutes of my day as a teacher to illuminate all the tiny, often overlooked decisions teachers make …
7, Thursday. Book Group Day
Today, I take you into our book group discussion day. Students love this day and really look forward to it. We meet every Thursday in the library. Students bring their books and a “literary focus sheet” much like Harvey Daniels’ book group jobs. These are …
5, Tuesday. Story Time for Stress
A heavy cloud filled with buckets of rain waiting to release is hovering above or near students and teachers in the school. As I walk the halls, I dodge the clouds, trying to avoid making a puncture that would drench me, so as I made …
4, Monday. The Drive to School
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Kelsey, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this forum from Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers who are sharing slices of their lives here.
3, Sunday. Play Time
As we took off our socks and shoes, one girl said that even when she is in a bad mood, just getting her feet in the sand takes that all away. She went on to say she read an article about how our feet are …
2, Saturday. Husband and Book Shelves
https://youtu.be/7Ioou5CJfz8 Saturday morning is Dan time. Dan is my husband. Husbands of teachers are amazing, incredibly tolerant and not always patient with their teacher-spouse who answers school emails in bed and wakes up in the middle of night to write a lesson plan and who …
1, Friday. Sub Plans
Today is the first day of Slice of Life challenge. While this is a writing challenge, I am taking it as an opportunity to talk about and show my day in short video clips. Each day I plan to record a three to five minute …
How to Craft a Writing Assignment for All Content Areas
How many times have you been frustrated with the writing your students produce? You ask your students to respond to a question, and all you get are sentence fragments or an informal, sometimes a passive retort stating the obvious. Have you ever been disappointed by …
Interviewing: An Essential Experience in English
So much of our communication is brief or in passing. Think about quick text messages, Snapchats deleted in seconds, messages limited to characters. While such digital communication is a part of “twenty-first century learning,” so, too, is collaboration within classrooms, in open-concept-cubicle-land offices spaces, over …