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One of the reasons poetry is so powerful is because of all that can be taught and learned via this genre.  Since typically this genre is short it makes it manageable for students to try new strategies and techniques.  It is also appealing since it takes less time to write a poem, often drafting, revision, [...]

March 2009’s Voices from the Middle included an article by Georgia Heard entitled “Celestino:  A Tribute to the Healing Power of Poetry. ”  In typical Georgia Heard style, the article is both eloquent and poignant.  Early in the article Heard writes, One of the reasons to invite poetry into our lives and into the lives of our [...]

“I hate poetry,” unfortunately those words were the truth of my existence for many years.  They prevented me from becoming an English major, steering me toward science — give me biology and chemistry, not symbolism and personification.  Embarrassingly, I even taught for a year while still hating poetry.  I had never learned the point of [...]

TBPS Logo for Week of 020109 Originally uploaded by teachergal Here’s a recap of all of our “Getting Back to Basics” Posts: SUNDAY: structures & routines MONDAY: minilessons TUESDAY: mentor texts WEDNESDAY: conferring THURSDAY: sharing FRIDAY: assessment SATURDAY: strategy charts There was a lot of discussion around the conferring post, but we’d love to have your feedback on [...]

Memoir: Early Strategy Chart Originally uploaded by teachergal I tend to have a lot of mini-charts for my students’ notebooks rather than hanging large ones around the room (these days). However, I thought this one was worthy of some wall space. Essentially, these are the teaching points from the first four collecting minilessons of our Memoir Unit [...]

Assessment.  Is there anything basic about it?  As I’ve lamented about what to post on this topic today, I decided to look back and share how I survived assessing writing when I first began teaching according to the Writing Workshop philosophy nearly nine years ago.  Here is a golden nugget: Assess writing through different lenses. The first [...]

In Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6, Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli write, “Mentor texts help writers notice things about an author’s work that is not like anything they might have done before, and empower them to try something new” (2007, 3). Many of my fourth and fifth grade [...]

TBPS Logo for Week of 020109 Originally uploaded by teachergal Ruth and I talked last week about some of the comments and e-mails we’ve been getting this week. Many of the comments are from teachers who are feeling torn about test prep, while many more of the e-mails are from teachers who are implementing Writing Workshop [...]

What children take home in their heads and hearts is much more important than what they take home in their hands. – Bev Bos Sometimes we get caught up in having the perfect plan, the perfect lesson, the perfect unit, the perfect curriculum, and our students producing the perfect pieces. This isn’t what really matters. A [...]

“Teach the writer, not the writing.” – Lucy Calkins   Do you ever feel exasperated by all of the errors you see in your students’ writing?  The conference begins and before you know it you’ve given lots of useful advice on how to fix the writing.  You look over and notice your student is completely deflated, having [...]

Some of the quotes/highlights from our posts, which you can locate at any time by typing “Big Picture Series” into the SEARCH BOX on the top right corner of this blog. “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because [...]

This is the final post of the Big Picture Series. (Ruth stated hers was the last, but after I received some mail from her today, I decided we needed to have just one more post in this Series.) I returned home from running errands about 30 minutes ago and found a thick, manila envelope in [...]

“I’d rather be able to face myself in the bathroom mirror than be rich and famous.” –Ani DiFranco I created a handbook of classroom regulations and procedures for my fifth graders during my second and third years of teaching in New York. Here’s an excerpt from it: Academic dishonesty (e.g., cheating, copying, plagiarizing) will not be tolerated. [...]

I live with a first grader.  Here were her two big concerns prior to the first day of school: One.  Will my teacher be nice?  Two.  Will I have any friends? I think we could ask any student, in any grade, in any school what their top two concerns are prior to starting a new school year and [...]

Yesterday, Ruth wrote a post entitled “The Big Picture.” It reminded me of this quote from Mitch Albom’s Book Tuesdays with Morrie: “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you [...]