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Do you have students who are interested in math and science, but claim they hate writing or don't know what to write about in their writer’s notebooks? Here are 10 newer picture books to inspire them to write about their passion.

Are you worried about sending writer's notebooks home with your students? What if they don't bring them back?

Are you worried about sending writer's notebooks home with your students? What if they don't bring them back?

  Winter break is coming soon, replete with its promise of snowy days spent sledding down hills or curled up inside, watching the world turn white. Or, for those lucky enough to live or… Continue reading →

Launch a note-taking curriculum with an assessment and a vision of what is possible.

Launch a note-taking curriculum with an assessment and a vision of what is possible.

Need some inspiration? Try writing a poem today using one of these tips for getting started!

Grace Chough led a session, “Turning Writer’s Notebooks Into Workbenches, and Using Them to Work Deliberately Towards Big Goals,” at the June 2014 TCRWP Writing Institute.  She shared lots of smart thinking about… Continue reading →

Grace Chough led a session, “Turning Writer’s Notebooks Into Workbenches, and Using Them to Work Deliberately Towards Big Goals,” at the June 2014 TCRWP Writing Institute.  She shared lots of smart thinking about… Continue reading →

We are in that in-between stage right now in writing workshop, having  just completed our Personal Narrative unit, and pausing briefly before we begin our unit on memoir.  These in-between stages are often… Continue reading →

Do you have students who claim they don't know what to write about in their writer's notebooks? Here are 10 new picture books to inspire them to write.

After your students decorate their writer’s notebooks and you review your expectations, the notebooks go home.  This is exciting!  Who doesn’t love writing in a new notebook?!!? I’ll tell ya, there are plenty of… Continue reading →

Launching writer's notebooks by giving kids a peek into my own

As a writing teacher, I know that I must write – and I do: blog posts, book reviews, a Slice of Life every Tuesday, letters to my students in the reading journals and… Continue reading →

At the end of the school year, we are often faced with pages and pages of student writing. Most of it may have gone home already, but now is a great time to… Continue reading →

Five things I'm reading, enjoying, and thinking about this Friday.

The last quarter of the school year signals a time of mixed feelings – the year is almost over,  and even though we look forward to restful summer days, there is the sadness… Continue reading →

The last quarter of the school year signals a time of mixed feelings – the year is almost over,  and even though we look forward to restful summer days, there is the sadness… Continue reading →

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ―William Wordsworth

Using mentor texts and a notebook entry to think about biographical writing

The writing a child crafts about a book or an article in her writer's notebook often holds a lot of meaning or value to her. This kind of writing about reading isn't about finding the main idea, making predictions, or intertextual connections. Rather, this writing about reading is usually composed in response to something that affected a child so deeply she had to write about it on her own terms.

A few years ago I thought I had a brilliant idea.  I created a master writer’s notebook since my notebook writing, which I shared with students during writing conferences and in minilessons, was… Read More →

In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, I hope to get into some classrooms this week to talk to kids about their writing plans for the long winter break.

The teachers noticed that several parents had written comments such as, "Great story, but you need commas" or "Nice job. Fix your capital letters." We wondered how to help parents understand that this writing was not meant to be perfect or polished. As teachers, we talked about the kinds of comments that would help nudge these kids as writers.

The idea of description and detail has been on my mind since that conference with Kevin. When might writers pause in their narrative to describe with rich detail?