Power Writing is a quick, low-stakes classroom routine that helps reluctant writers build fluency, stamina, and confidence. In just 3–7 minutes, students draft fast, track word counts, and engage in friendly competition. Learn how to implement this simple writing warm-up to energize your writing block and boost productivity.
Keep readingNarrative Writing Mistake #1: Boring Beginnings This is probably one of my favorite narrative writing mistakes to solve. I love to take their actual writing pieces and then just read the first sentence of each story, then drop the paper upside down on the ground. That’s all. One sentence is all it takes. It always sounds like this . . . One day a boy named Sam got lost. Once there was a girl named Lily. One day there was a kid named Bob. Once upon a time there was a dog named Max. After reading 20-30 first sentences, the…
Keep readingTake your middle school narrative writing lessons beyond the basic beginning, middle, and end with 5 key elements of storytelling: The Active Main Character, The Plot: A Series of Bad Decisions (Action, Reaction, Decision), The Immersive Setting (Sensory Details), Dialogue & Character Thoughts, and The Satisfying Ending.
Keep readingRather than focusing on right versus wrong and a polished end product, low-stakes writing activities encourage risk-taking and skill-building practice opportunities. It allows students to fail forward as they learn from their mistakes and grow as writers.
Keep readingTip #1: Create low-stakes, skill-building activities When I speak to teachers, both those at my own school site and those from local districts, I find that oftentimes, every writing assignment given to students gets graded. Yikes. To begin with, if you can grade every single writing assignment your students do, they aren’t writing enough. And number two, that’s a lot of pressure to put on both you and your kids. Let’s change that. Instead, I want your students to engage in frequent low-stakes writing activities that are NOT graded. By breaking this one grammar skill down into its individual…
Keep readingI love books, don’t you?
I mean, I’m a teacher and a writer, so yeah. Of course I love books.
But more specifically, I love buying and sharing a good mentor text with my students. Because I’ve found that some of my best lessons start as a mentor text lesson.
If you don’t know what a mentor text is, it’s a text that can be used as a model of good writing.
Keep readingNeed to teach a combo class this year? Teaching a split-grade level can be tricky but it doesn’t have to be. Here are three must-know tips for successfully teaching a combination class.
Keep readingAs a teenager, I loved writing poetry, albeit admittedly badly. Each poem was like a verbal puzzle to dwell upon as I tussled with hefty emotions. Wrangling juicy words into rhymes and lines and stanzas. It was my way of dealing with whatever life threw at me. And life had an obnoxious way of throwing a lot at me. In fact, I still have nearly every poem I wrote, tucked safely away in a binder on my bookshelf, too. Even trying to write this blog post became a challenge as I suddenly found myself heading off on a side quest…
Keep readingIn today’s blog post we’ll delve into the last of the 3 Keys to Grammar Success . . . Relevance, Not Routine. But first . . . Grammar Key Replay If this is your first time on the blog, you might want to read the last two blog posts before continuing on. Grammar Key #1: Integrate, Don’t Isolate and Grammar Key #2: Mimic & Manipulate, Don’t Memorize. If you’ve already read the two blog posts listed above, then you know that your grammar lessons should be integrated into both reading and writing time. In other words, every text…
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