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MENTOR TEXTS BUILD THE HABIT OF REVISION There are a lot of good reasons for using mentor texts with our students, but you know what? There are three really good reasons why your texts should not be "perfect." The idea of using mentor texts was one of those game-changing ideas for me. … [Read more...] about 3 Reasons Why Your Mentor Texts Should Not Be “Perfect”

3 Visible Thinking Activities: Often, the most successful activities in my classroom are those where we make student thinking visible. Deeper learning happens when I pull back the curtain on the process students need to follow, so they can clearly see what needs to be done.  And because they … [Read more...] about 3 Visible Thinking Activities

It was the second last Friday before Christmas and the day after a school dance. I knew I needed something engaging for my seniors, or the class would be a struggle. I also needed some more speaking and listening activities, so I decided to do an impromptu Socratic seminar - and it was one of the … [Read more...] about A Socratic Seminar that Really Worked

How to Use Learning Stations in a High School Classroom Learning stations or centers are very popular in elementary grades, but do they work with older students? Absolutely. In fact, they are an incredible tool for focus and learning.  So, if you're wondering how you can use learning stations in a … [Read more...] about How to Use Learning Stations in a High School Classroom

Persuasive Writing: a pre-writing activity Often when we announce that we are assigning an essay we get some groans and eye rolls. I try to circumvent that with some persuasive writing activities that get my students excited (or at least somewhat interested) in the art of persuasion.  Before we … [Read more...] about Persuasive Writing: a pre-writing activity

Expository Writing: Teaching Kids to Inform & Explain So you are teaching expository writing and here's the outcome for your students: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. It sounds a … [Read more...] about Expository Writing: Teaching Kids to Inform & Explain

Preventing fear of failure in our students is such an important part of our job. I'm sure that many of you have had "failures" in your life that taught you some important lessons. I know I certainly do. As adults, we can usually look back and understand that the pain that may have come with … [Read more...] about Preventing Fear of Failure

Student Apathy:  I know you feel it. Kids are just not as easy to engage these days. In fact, dealing with student apathy is one of our biggest challenges. We can blame it on a lot of things, but that just won't get us anywhere other than worked up and discouraged. Instead, what can we do about … [Read more...] about Dealing with Student Apathy

Today was an action-packed class, with lots of engagement from my students. We were learning about brainstorming with candy and about the speaking and listening process. It was a perfect way to spend a full moon Friday the 13th together! The class had two distinct sections today, starting … [Read more...] about Lesson Planning in Room 213: Speaking, Listening & Brainstorming with Candy

Hello, there! If you've been following along, all week I've been sharing the things that I've been doing with my students. It's only our second week, so the students are learning about my expectations for reading and writing workshop - and about the importance of word choice. Yesterday, I did … [Read more...] about Lesson Planning in Room 213: BUILDING WORD CHOICE

This is my first full week with my students so we started with some warm up activities and ones that get us started and organized. Today, I'm ready to start focusing on how authors use word choice deliberately. My students are seniors, so much of what I'll cover over the next few classes is not … [Read more...] about Lesson Planning in Room 213: The importance of word choice