This snippet is not about writing, but about how I will protect my time to do what truly matters to me. This year I’m going to set firm boundaries between home and school. I know I say that every year, but this time I’m actually going to do it. I plan to leave twenty minutes… Read more

Writing workshop. We write. We read. We talk. We make lists. We draw. We share our stories. We ask for feedback. We give feedback. We make choices. We set goals. We nurture our community. We create. We collaborate. We make our writing public. We keep our writing to ourselves. Writing workshop. Cross posted to The… Read more

I am a teacher-writer. I write something every day. I make my writing public even though hitting that publish button is always an act of courage for me. Yet, if I am going to be a better teacher of writing, then I need to put pen to paper often. I need to take risks in… Read more

Yesterday I started to panic a little bit. It feels like the summer is going by way too fast! And, I haven’t read or done half of the things I had intended to do. Today I’m less anxious. But only just a little bit less. 🙂 Last week I wrote about reading. This week I’d… Read more

Thank you to Juliette Awua-Kierematen for getting me thinking about book clubs. I am a big fan of adult book clubs, but I’ve only been in one that I loved. It lasted for two to three years. We’d meet once a month at the houses of the club members. We enjoyed delicious pot luck dinners.… Read more

In yesterday’s blog post, Jill Bless commented, and I am paraphrasing, that teachers might be needing some support to jump start their reading conferences after the school year we’ve all had to endure. And that got me thinking… My reading instruction certainly looked different teaching online. My in person classroom is organized around a workshop… Read more

In an exchange in yesterday’s blog post, I wrote the following: Juliette…I wanted to plan for something more holistic. This was my first attempt at having everyone reading the same text. I usually just work off whatever students are reading independently. I’m thinking of doing several different kinds of assessments in the fall so that… Read more

Ever since I can remember I have done one-on-one reading and writing conferences with students. I like to think of these as “interviews” or “conversations”. Recently I did reading interviews with my students to culminate our year of online learning. I selected a fiction text on Epic and asked each child to read the first… Read more

I am trying something new on my blog. If I’m being honest, and I aim to always be honest, I’m a little scared to do this. But I’m itching to make a change. To make a difference. To get out of my way and into the world. So, I’m going to take a giant leap… Read more

I have been doing Lisa Sonora’s 30-Day Journal Project. I just finished day #7. Since the journal project is asynchronous, I am not doing it in 30 days, but spreading it out for as long as I want to. I do a prompt whenever I feel the need to be introspective because, for me, this… Read more