Over the several years, I’ve had the opportunity to begin designing emergent curriculum with several different groups of writing teachers. Last week, our journey continued as we began to embrace the opportunities and confront the challenges inherent in co-designing curriculum with young writers. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do: Design with kids, rather than ahead of them. It’s not uncommon for people to assume that emergent curriculum is purely student-driven. It’s also not…
Schools have become increasingly skilled at gathering data about learners–particularly quantitative data in the form of standardized and local test scores. But these data often fail to communicate the most essential information that teachers need in order to serve students well. These data help us develop hunches about what students struggle with. They don’t really help us understand why, though. This is why story matters. More than tools to engage listeners, story teaches all of us…
It’s launch time in most of the schools that I support. Teachers are welcoming writers into new spaces, establishing routines, and filling their hearts and minds with renewed promise: This year, we will become writers. We’re always becoming, aren’t we? We’re always beginning again. This year, I’m celebrating twenty five years of launching writing workshop. Of course, twenty five years ago, no one was using the word launch to describe the beginning of a new…
Earlier this month, I began sharing the four ways I notice making enriching writing in the workshops that I facilitate and coach in. In my work, that’s what I’m constantly watching for and trying to inspire–making that enriches writing and moves writers forward rather than tempting them to evade the process entirely. This is why I love fire starters: Creative constraints that I bundle together and light at the start of each session. Each fire…
I’ve just returned home from an incredible week with writers and teachers from Chappaqua Central School District. They hosted a Make Writing Pop-Up event that brought all of us into a shared community. Kids wrote from 8:30 until noon, teachers engaged in lesson study around and among them, and we reserved the afternoon for professional conversations and learning. I left with a spinning head, a full heart, and a reminder of this simple truth: It’s one…
Earlier this week, I shared this matrix for designing rich learning experiences, and a bunch of people asked what each dimension of the 2×2 might look like inside of a writing workshop. So, I made this tonight. I’m traveling a bunch this week, so this post is short and late, but it’s up! I’m wondering how it sits with you. How might your students pursue rich learning experiences of their own? Come talk with me about this…
On Tuesday, I shared a visual intended to help teachers conceptualize the whole of a writing workshop year before sharing a unit framework that middle level teachers might use to investigate social justice beside their students. Today, I’d like to show you the dashboard behind this kind of unit design. Those who have worked with me inside of writing workshops and studios are sometimes surprised to learn that I’m a fan of standards and other clear…
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…
Here’s the short story, as most people I’m familiar with tend to tell it: Design thinking emerged from failed attempts to create innovative products and bring them to market. Traditional models for getting this sort of thing done suffered from a few serious flaws, so the people who cared about getting things right started making some significant shifts in practice. For instance, rather than inventing things they assumed would be useful and reacting to sales and…
When I wrote Make Writing in 2015, I’d just finished a lengthy action research project that focused on engagement in the writing workshops that I led. That project began long before the maker movement took the education world by storm, but by the time I was culminating the findings, the connection was clear: inviting kids to make in workshop was a powerful game changer. More than mere distraction or a path away from the writing process,…