Feel It In Your Bones

Creating Inspiration in Student Writing

I’d been with working Zoe for over a week on her idea for the This I Believe essay. She immediately gravitated toward a topic but struggled with her structure. After one conversation, her eyes lit up as she uttered, “I’m…

Build Trust to Build Writers

Fostering growth in a writing workshop

“I guess I’m just not that good of a writer.”

I sat across from Abby, listening to her mutter those words as she responded to my explanation of why she received an…

Logical Reasoning

How I spent 70 minutes defining mathematical justifications without doing any “math”

I wish you could have seen the look on my students’ faces when I told them that they wouldn’t have to do any “math” in the entire…

Games that Teach are All Well and Good, But …

We’ve been missing the point.

Welcome! You’re a Level 0 newbie.

You see, I’m not writing a blog. Or more accurately, I’m running my blog as a game, and you are my favorite player…

The Power of the Write-in

Creating accomplished writers and engaged learners

Imagine a classroom where class begins with ten minutes of silence every day. The only sound is that of pens or pencils traversing the paper. Students, every single one of…

Shedding My Martyr Role

Examining What I Value in the Writing Workshop

I know my role as an English teacher martyr and have played it well many times: assign lots of writing, look overwhelmed, grade a few papers per night at home, look more overwhelmed…