What is the goal of your writing instruction?
• Is your instruction geared to helping your students become the next great American novelist?
• Is your primary goal to make sure that your students never leave a dangling participle or slit an infinitive?
• Do you hope to develop a passion for writing?
• Is your goal to help develop the writing skills [...]
State Standards, Standardized Tests, and… Writer’s Workshop?
In the real world of state standards and standardized tests, it can be a little difficult for a teacher to get their head around what Writer’s Workshop is. As long as I have been teaching there has been a continuing push towards making teachers more and more accountable for [...]
What is the Purpose of Your Writing Prompt? Have You Defined a Goal or Objective?
The most important thing about a writing prompt is for the teacher to have a purpose for the writing prompt. Many teachers don’t think a lot about what their purpose is when they put up a writing prompt.
The thought process usually [...]
Organization: The Most Important Trait for Elementary Students
A pioneer of Six Traits writing was Paul B. Diederich. His “traits” were a little different than the current “Six Traits of Writing” however they did include both “ideas” and “organization.”
For Diederich “ideas” and “organization” were the most important of the traits and received greater weight.
Middle school [...]
The Six Traits of Writing
In teaching elementary students to write well there is “grammar” and there is “writing.” Many teachers teach A LOT of grammar because when it comes to teaching writing, they are at a loss.
What does it mean to teach “writing?” A useful model that can help elementary teachers is the “Six [...]
Are Patterns What You Think They Are?
It’s likely that you know a lot more AND a lot less about patterns than you think you do!
I was always a bit of a “math geek,” but what I have learned about patterns has opened my eyes to whole new dimensions of the world we live [...]