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Is it important that teachers who teach writing actually write?

After reading Write Beside Them, Tara Smith realized she had to connect her teacher and writer identities. No longer would it be enough to share mentor texts and confer. She realized she needed to share her writing life with her students and walk them through her thinking as she wrote.

Today Deb Gaby and I finished leading the third day of a three-day Foundations of Writing Workshop training. At the end, we asked for reflections. Teacher after teacher commented on the impact of… Read More →

“Let our testimony be our pen.” – Anonymous African American Male from Chicago I found myself rushing to get my lunch from the Reading Terminal Market so I could eat it while listening to Alfred W. Tatum yesterday afternoon.  My sandwich landed up sitting in the bag for an hour and 15 minutes since I was [...]

“Let our testimony be our pen.” – Anonymous African American Male from Chicago I found myself rushing to get my lunch from the Reading Terminal Market so I could eat it while listening to Alfred W. Tatum yesterday afternoon.  My sandwich landed up sitting in the bag for an hour and 15 minutes since I was [...]

This quote from Penny’s book spoke to me today: “Writers don’t need to be given formulas; they need to be shown possibilities.”    — Barry Lane I’ve been thinking about this.  So often, in the name of modeling, I think we give students a formula for writing as opposed to showing them possibilities.  It’s a fine line between [...]

I was asked to submit  a piece of writing for a little newsletter the All-Write Consortium is putting together.  The focuse for this issue is Why Workshop?  So I refined a poem that I think fits with the theme.  I would love some feedback before I submit it.  Here are some questions I have: Do you [...]

Literacydetails’ Post reminded me of a conversation I had with the student who inspired the SOLSC. He confided in me about a week or so ago. Here’s a close approximate of the conversation: I walked into the hallway and saw C standing at his backpack shaking his head. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Ms. Shubitz, [...]

Sark, United Kingdom

Coordinates: 49 25 N 2 22 W

Approximate area: 2 square miles (5 sq km)

Times change, and with them, people and places are carried along on the tide of modernization. But not always. On the tiny island of Sark in the English Channel, feudalism has clung, virtually unnoticed, to its rocky shores since the Middle Ages. In fact, this hereditary form of rule hung on long enough to make it the only feudal territory left on Europe, a continent known (among political geographers at least) for its microstates and puny principalities. (more…)

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