writing
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My standard introduction at a conference is, “I’m a literacy coach looking for daily doses of creativity and joy,” so when I read Angela Stockman’s Hacking the Writing Workshop: Redesign with Making in Mind, I knew it was going to be a just-right book for me. Boy, was I right! It inspired me so much…
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I’m THRILLED to be hosting an All-Ages Family Writing Night on Wednesday, December 11th from 6:00 to 7:30 in the Center School Community Room. I will run it as a Writers’ Workshop, so if you’ve ever wondered what that looks or feels like, you’ll get to experience it firsthand alongside Center cardinals! In this workshop,…
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Once a month, LPS teachers have a “teacher-led” staff meeting. Teachers must be in the building from 3 to 4 working on anything of their choice. After going to the Saturday Reunion at Teachers College and Literacy for All, I was desperate to share all of the new ideas I’d learned. I’d been considering lots…
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Last week, I hosted my first Writing Clinic. Its focus was conferring, which I believe is the heart of Writers’ Workshop (looks like the blog, Two Writing Teachers, agrees with me in the latest post, “Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning”). Entire grade level teams attended the first clinic, and everyone left with a…
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I’m devoting a lot of my thinking and attention to writing this year. How can I support students’ independence in writing? How can I encourage their transfer of skills from one unit to the next? How can I improve their awareness of themselves as writers? Reflection is a tool that I turn to again and…
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I have been obsessed with Dr. Rudine Bishop Sims’s quote about books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors ever since I first heard it. So true. So powerful. When I saw Grant Snider’s print inspired by the quote, I knew I had to get it. After the reading specialist at my school transformed a…
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I love Open House! When I was a classroom teacher, I documented “A Day in the Life of a Student in Ms. Vigna’s Class” with pictures, student work, and resources. Since I don’t have a classroom anymore (sniff, sniff!), I’m preparing the Connector, the underground tunnel connecting the two wings of our school, to be…
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Having students pick book nooks is one of my favorite lessons in Readers’ Workshop launch! We read aloud You Can Read and discussed the good book nooks in their classroom. One of my goals for my lessons this year is to plan the what, the how, and the WHY. WHY is it important for readers to…
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Background At the last PD day a couple weeks ago, the literacy coaches organized a variety of stations focusing on writing about reading. Teachers spent the majority of the morning exploring resources like the Literacy Continuum and Learning Progressions, analyzing student work, and calibrating assessment. They collected tons of ideas about what students need to…
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A quick search for “toolkits” in the Units of Study Facebook groups will yield dozens of posts with requests for and pictures of various toolkits. They are certainly a hot topic. However, I haven’t seen many that focus on writing about reading, a component of balanced literacy that students are expected to do throughout the…
A SEA OF TALK 