If you’ve read my new book, then you know that I’m a huge supporter of what my friend Michelle Haseltine is doing over at #100DaysofNotebookKeeping and Beyond! Last week, she welcomed fellow notebook keepers back into that community, where everyone makes a commitment to 100 days of notebook keeping. I started last year, floundered, and eventually quit. This year, I’m planning to go the distance. One of the things that I love most about the…
Last week, I started a conversation that I promised to continue throughout this month, one post at a time. It’s about privilege, power, and print inside of our writing workshops and classrooms. Where we’ve been, where we need to be going, and what I’m trying to do, in order to help people get there. My ideas are a small contribution. I know this. I have much more to learn and others have so much more…
Alignment matters. Defining the standards we expect students to meet, making them accessible to the kids we serve, and assessing and supporting progress toward them–this matters. Much. I’m not merely referring to state standards, either. I’m referring to the standards that our best practitioners–the experts in our field–have defined for us, based on decades of research. I’m referring to our personal standards and the ones that our school communities hold dear. I’m referring to the…
Two weeks ago, Laurie Schultz invited me to coach in her kindergarten writing workshop at John T. Waugh Elementary School in Lake Shore. I’m always grateful to work with Laurie. Her energy is incredible, and she sustains her compassion for even the most challenging kids in her care. She also maintains a high bar for her students, regardless of any label that’s been imposed on them. My Rationale: When we met to discuss the mini-unit…
It was empathy that drew me to design thinking. The notion that creative people might best begin their work by seeking to understand the needs of their audiences was compelling. And it got me thinking, once again: Why aren’t all young writers creating real stuff for real audiences about things that really matter? Some are, I know. Too many aren’t though, and I can’t help but wonder if the way we introduce the writing process…
Jackie James Creedon shares a map of future soil testing sites in western New York State. Jackie James Creedon is the founder of Citizens Science Community Resources, an organization that is committed to promoting science-based activism and empowering grass-roots environmental justice and health campaigns. In 2014, Jackie received an award from the Environmental Protection Agency for her courageous efforts to lead an investigation in our community that took down Tonawanda Coke, a local factory…
I’ve spent a good portion of this year helping teachers unpack and design some pretty powerful writing experiences around this particular standard. I’ll admit that it’s my favorite. Sure, research and information writing teach us about the world, and stories help us learn how to live in it. Poets accomplish both of those things and more, but this is the standard that challenges young people to distinguish fact from fallacy and evidence from high emotion. This is…
Some of the conversations that I have with young writers are inspired by the work of Christopher Johns, whose framework for reflective practice enables them to identify their needs, advocate for themselves, and use what they’ve come to understand to be of service to others. Sounds heavy, but it really isn’t. Consider this: Inspiring those you know to do the same can happen when you invite them to think about, discuss, and craft responses to…
Read this book. “Too often, people think the idea of letting students choose their own topic or text comes from the romantic notion that adults shouldn’t interfere with children’s development, that it should be allowed to unfold naturally. Letting kids “do what they want” sometimes strikes observers as quaintly soft and naive. This may be because some teachers express the principle of choice as a negative: ‘In writer’s workshop, you don’t assign the topic. Kids…