Uncategorized

Remote Teaching and Learning

When we moved to remote learning, I was fortunate enough to be working in a handful of classrooms. I got to teach my genre fiction unit with 6th graders and a brand new narrative non-fiction unit with 7th graders. What I learned, alongside my brave and wonderful co-teachers, is that relationships and the option for complex thinking instead of busywork, created decent conditions for engagement. And Read more […]

Read More

Writing Nonfiction – Challenge accepted!

As a Language Arts teacher and a teacher writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about writing. I spend even more time testing out lesson ideas in classrooms with many different ages and configurations of students. Once I have a good idea with lots of positive student response, I present that idea to my fellow educators in their buildings and districts, but also at state and national conferences. Because Read more […]

Read More

Fan Fiction – It’s fun AND it’s on the state test

One of the most popular demo lessons I do in schools is about writing Fan Fiction. I first learned about Fan Fiction twenty years ago at the state Gifted Ed conference from a woman who wrote Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman fics. For the past few years I’ve been offering Fan Fiction as a choice, but fewer than a quarter of the students I work with request it.  And then I started reading released items Read more […]

Read More