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A strong active engagement, and a routine for informally assessing student work during the minilesson can give you the tools you need to be sure that no student leaves the meeting area completely confused.

It's hard to have a publishing celebration for people who live miles apart from you. Therefore, a virtual publishing party is the best I can do for Anna and Beth today. Please stop by to leave a congratulatory comment for them since their books have been published.

Our guest blogger takes a look at the 3rd grade Units Of Study

Take some time to celebrate what your students have accomplished, thanks to your teaching, in writing workshop. Name something -- big or small -- you're proud of from this school year.

Have you ever wondered what some of the writing workshop lingo means? Here's another look at some commonly used workshop jargon.

Encouraging kids to make decisions about their writing, rather than blindly following grammar rules helps lifts the level of their thinking, and the level of their writing.

Learn some tricks for reading the Units of Study, whether you're new to the units or have been using them for many years.

I’ll begin by being honest – I don’t like checklists. It’s a personal thing.  Checklists make me anxious, they fill me with the fear of impending failure. As soon as I’ve taken the… Continue reading →

Ever since I first received my copy of the middle school Units of Study in Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing , this book has been in my book bag and on my desk,… Continue reading →

There is an adage: if the teacher is working too hard, the students aren’t working hard enough. There are many cases where this is true: in a writing conference when the teacher is… Continue reading →

As the school year comes to a close, many of the schools I work with are launching into a week or so of in-service, summer institutes, and other professional development. It’s “curriculum season”… Continue reading →

If we do nothing else, we do this one thing…Read this post to find out what it is!

We’ve all been there. You’ve gathered your students into the classroom meeting area, nice and cozy, with the intention of doing just a quick l’il minilesson. Just a quick tip about writing and… Continue reading →

Anna Gratz Cockerille, a new member of the TWT team, introduces herself to the community and writes about new beginnings.

After reading "Technology and the College Generation," I've come to believe teachers of writing need to craft mini units of study to help kids learn to use e-mail confidently.

After reading "Technology and the College Generation," I've come to believe teachers of writing need to craft mini units of study to help kids learn to use e-mail confidently.

4th Grade Teacher (& Slicer) Noor Shammas writes about her students' Community Member Biography Project.

I purchased the original Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3 – 5 when they were published in 2006. In the early days, those books were like a Bible to me. I… Read More →

In preparing to talk with teachers about planning a unit of study, I created this chart to help show how I encourage students to individualize the writing process instead of forcing a lockstep approach to the writing process throughout a unit of study. Here are a couple of slides from my presentation: Many units of [...]

Many teachers are spending preparation periods working with colleagues to develop a curriculum map for the 2010-2011 school year.  Developing a scope and sequence that is developmentally appropriate, interesting to children, and meets state standards is of crucial importance.  However, it’s not always easy to plan for the following school year. Rissa, of the Learn [...]

Yesterday, Jen asked: As you are blogging about back to school, I wondered if you have any hints/tips for a parent presentation or handout to be use on Back to School Night? We are transitioning into Writer’s Workshop using Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study in the upper grades from a more activity driven 6-Traits based model. [...]

I’m plowing through the questions Katie asked, last week, methodically. Here are the two I’m going to answer today: Which genres do you teach during the year? Approximately how long do you spend in each genre and how many published pieces do you expect from them at the end of it? Here’s a list of all of [...]

Today is my last day of Spring Vacation.  It has felt as though I’ve been away from school, and from blogging, for a long time!  Thanks to Ruth’s understanding about my need to take a vacation without my computer, I’ve really had some time to unwind, contemplate, and relax.  I’m ready for the final 47 [...]

A reader, Sara, suggested, a few weeks ago, that I restate the students’ goals for the upcoming Writer’s Notebook Unit of Study as “I Can…” Statements, which I did for the two most recent units I taught in Reading and Writing Workshops. Therefore, I tweaked what I had and turned it into the following: Goals [...]

I received a question earlier this evening about what’s next in my Writing Workshop: What do you usually do next in writing workshop? I just finished persuasive writing, and this is the first time I have done it so early in the year. I am trying to figure out the next logical step. I feel like [...]