If you’re looking for a new approach to teaching writing, you’ve got to try teaching with hyperdocs. What are hyperdocs? According to their creators, Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton and Sarah Landis, hyperdocs are “a transformative, interactive, personalized engaging too to help facilitate student creativity and collaboration” (The Hyperdoc Handbook). And I can testify that hyperdocs […]
writing
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Struggles of Grading Writing: It’s the Process That Matters
I absolutely hate assigning a letter grade to student writing; it’s depressing. Not because my students are bad writers because they aren’t. It’s that I hate to see all the mini-lessons, and drafting, revising, editing, conversations, and growing as writers reduced to one letter. A percentage in the grade book. As soon as that grade is […]
Posted inParents
Encouraging Children to Read and Write
Originally posted in RealEdReform My own three daughters are insatiable readers, perpetual writers, and the oldest is our first state-level and national level prize winner for her writing. Number two has submitted this year, but she’s only in 10th grade and is just beginning to develop her formidable chops. How did I encourage my children to […]
Posted inTeacher Leaders
150 Articles Later: A Reflection on My Time at The Educator’s Room
In October 2012, my local newspaper published “Exhaustion of the American Teacher” by John Kuhn. I remember reading the article once. Twice. Four-hundred times. It simply spoke every frustrated, burnt out end of my professional being. If you haven’t read it yet, please stop reading this article and go there. So, like any curious reader, […]
Posted inElementary School
Print Resources: Great Tools for Kids
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Scholastic News for Grade 4. All opinions are 100% of this teacher. It is always exciting when you can bring the world into your classroom. There are a million things out there to use, but as all educators know, some are better than others. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How to Integrate Literacy into the Non-ELA Classroom
If there is one message that I get when I examine the Common Core standards for reading and writing, it’s this: Share the load. I think that English teachers have often shouldered the burden of literacy. We have felt that it is simply our job to teach students to write and to read and to analyze […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How To Make Writing a Priority in Your ELA Classroom
For many years of teaching, I would follow the same formula over and over throughout the year with my classes: teach a unit, finish unit, assign paper on that unit. Writing happened, but it was the thing that we did after we did the other stuff. What this means is that writing mostly happened at home, […]
Posted inBack to School
Why I’m Quitting After Only Two Weeks of a New School Year
This year would have been my fourteenth year in the secondary classroom, but it won’t be after this week. With a brand new crop of freshly oriented students ready for the year ahead, I will be leaving them for a full-time professorship at the college level. On one hand, it’s a great opportunity – I’ve […]