Ruth’s Slice: I’ve Gotta Secret!

I was putting the little guy down to bed and he whispers:  “Momma, I gotta secret.  Wanna know it?”
Smiling, because, really, what kind of secret could a two and a half year old have from his mom, I whisper back, “You want to share it?”
“Uh-huh,” he nods, serious.
“Okay, what is it?” I encourage him.
He sits [...]

Write Beside Them.

 

Late last week, this book came in the mail.  Write Beside Them, by Penny Kittle has me glued to the couch, with highlighter in hand.  I’m beginning to think it may be easier to highlight the stuff that I don’t want to remember than all of the words that are striking me at the moment.
I [...]

Hello Slicers!

Welcome!  Please link your Slice of Life Story.

Ruth’s MM: Laney Windelon.

 

 
In 1984 my parents gave me Laney Windelon, my very own Cabbage Patch kid to adopt.  I remember Laney being the first gift to ever bring tears to my eyes.  She was made just for me.  I wanted: red hair; two braids; blue eyes; closed mouth smile; and a dimple.  My mom searched for months, [...]

Memoir Monday is Here!

Document a Week in the Life

Challah #1 came out perfectly.

Originally uploaded by teachergal

Ali Edwards is hosting a week-long challenge to document your life in photographs and words. If you’re interested in taking part in this challenge, then click here to learn more about it.
My first set of photos for this Challenge can be found by clicking here. (I’ll [...]

Stacey’s M.M. Post: What do you mean it’s supposed to rain on the second day of Rosh Hashanah!??!?!

I’ve been checking the weather all weekend. It simply cannot rain tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday. However, it looks like it might on Wednesday. It’s not supposed to rain on the High Holidays!
I grew up in a pretty large synagogue in New Jersey. There were three services for Rosh Hashanah: two in [...]

Thinking About the 5.75 with the Lens of a Teacher of Writing

The Jewish New Year of 5769 is rapidly approaching. (Hence the reason you won’t be reading much from me over the course of the next few days.) Therefore, I’ve been steeping my mind in reflection about the year that has passed. Therefore, when Ruth posted a link to the Five Big Questions [...]

Poetry Friday: Taken from the End of the 5.75 Questions Video

    This week Poetry Friday is hosted at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Next Friday, it’s here at Two Writing Teachers!

Inspiring Writers.

My presentation, Inspiring Writers, is divided into a few different parts.
First, a read aloud:
 

 

Second , the slide presentation:
Inspiring Writers – Upload a Document to Scribd
 
Next a writer’s notebook entry:  Make a list of things that make you happy.  Click here for inspiring tunes.
Then an excerpt from Penny Kittle’s new book, Write Beside Them.  (Note:  This chapter, [...]

Inspired Writers?

Tonight I’m giving a presentation entitled:  Inspiring Writers.  I chose this title a month ago because I knew it was general enough to cover anything I may want to discuss.  For the past few weeks I’ve been struggling with this presentation.  Simply, what do I want to tell these teachers?  How, in an hour, can [...]

Instead of fixing my kids’ spelling errors…

Minimal Marking

Originally uploaded by teachergal

I’m trying a Vopat Editing Technique called “Minimal Markings.” It’s basically where you put check marks in the margin of a student’s paper, which signals them that there’s a misspelled word on a line. Then, it’s up to the student to use resources (e.g., word wall, high frequency word [...]

Discussion Forum.

Woo-hoo, I’m going to be teaching my English 9 class in a 1:1 Classroom.  This means there is a computer for every student!  As you can imagine, the wheels are spinning about ways I can use technology to help students become more authentic readers and writers.
I’ll be using Moodle as the course management system.  Today [...]

Personal Narrative Texts.

In many of the classrooms I’m working in, we are moving into a Personal Narrative study.  I asked teachers to gather books they would like to use to anchor their teaching.  Below is a list of some of the texts:
A Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel and David Catrow
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very [...]

Memoir Monday: Sascha 1999 – 2008.

From TWT_2

 My dog died on Saturday around 5:30 pm.  Actually, it’s unfair to say my dog, because during the school year, she was Andy’s dog.  She was my dog during the summers. 
It’s funny how I feel just a little out of sorts.  In all fairness, she was just a dog — it’s not something catastrophic.  Still, [...]

Playing with Time

Since my students are quickly publishing a small moment story this week, I only had one day (yesterday) to teach a revision strategy. I chose to teach them how to play with time, which is an idea I adapted from Jim Vopat’s Micro Lessons for Writing book.
I gave my students a mini-chart [...]

Slice of Life Challenge

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge. You may link your post here by clicking on the Image Linky below.

Paragraphing in Notebooks

Today was the first day I checked my students’ Idea Notebooks, using the rubric I adapted from Buckner’s Book, since the school year began. The frequency with which the kids have been writing is amazing to me! One student even received a 4- on her notebook today and I gave her one of [...]

My M.M. Post

I was teaching my kids a developing strategy (i.e., using time lines before you draft) today and created a timeline of the last time I went to Yankee Stadium. (I was feeling sentimental after last night’s ceremony, which I watched on television). Since I am going to be developing this timeline [...]

It’s just another Memoir Monday, oh-uh-wo…

Somehow I have the Bangles’ song, “Manic Monday,” rattling around in my head this morning. Truth be told, I was under the weather most of the day yesterday and could use one more day at home. Alas, it’s 5:17 a.m. and I need to get ready to head into work.
I digress… [...]

Hard Work Should Be Celebrated

Katherine Bomer talked about celebrations this past summer at the TCRWP July Writing Institute. As I was planning my News & Announcements Charts for the upcoming week today, I found myself wanting to write about writing on four out of five of them. You see, I want my students to realize that their hard [...]

This is the only kind of jogging you’re going to see me do!

Kevin, Creator of Day in a Sentence, used a new technology, Jog the Web, to showcase everyone’s posts this week. I was fascinated with the ease at which I was able to navigate through the websites of the Day in a Sentence Contributors. In fact, I liked Kevin’s Jog so much that I [...]

Reminder Sign

New Sign by the Door

Originally uploaded by teachergal

I was on Etsy about two weeks ago and came across a customizable sign from K is for Calligraphy that would prevent me from sounding like a broken record to my students day-in and day-out.
This sign, which was welcomed by my students and I earlier today, [...]

PHOTO FRIDAYS: An Almost-”Seinfeld” Moment

The things I had to do for this challah!

Originally uploaded by teachergal

I was patiently waiting in line at the Hope Street Location of Seven Stars Bakery. I eyed the last challah, standing up on one end behind the counter. I stood there patiently hoping that the two women in front of me weren’t [...]

Yo-Ho-Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day (link takes you to Wikipedia; here is the official site).  Next to Christmas, this may just be my favorite!    A little known secret is that I’m an avid pirate-lover.  I love all things Pirate (except for the baseball team)!  Today my little family of five is [...]