SOLS Challenge in the Classroom

I am thrilled to hear so many plans to extend Slice of Life Story Challenge to your classrooms. Thank you to those who have shared their thinking. My friend Ruth Metcalfe (she posts in the comments as “the other ruth”),  has generously shared her reflective thinking, anchor chart, and templates for a SOLS Challenge book [...]

Important Info if You Wanna Play SOLS Challenge 2011

Hello writer friends. Are you as excited about the Challenge starting as I am? Here are some important things for you to know if you are planning to join us for Slice of Life Story Challenge 2011.    Here is a button just for this year’s challenge. Thanks for this suggestion! I changed the [...]

Words that are Speaking to Me

“It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak words that matter.” — Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant

Standardized Writing Prompts

In Indiana, many students will be taking the state writing test next week. So I’ve been thinking about what is most important for our young writers to know prior to taking the standardized test.  I’ve decided it is this: You know everything you need to know to be successful. As with most things when it [...]

You Up for a Writing Challenge?

I’m hoping you plan to join the Slice of Life Story Challenge in March. I’m also hoping you talk to your friends, parents, children, spouses, or strangers in the grocery store line about the challenge because documenting the little moments in our ordinary days is rewarding. (Mom, are you reading this? It’s time for you [...]

What does she mean add details?

My daughter shook a paper in front my face, with her other hand on her hip she said, “I lost points because she [the teacher] said I have to add more details. How do you add more details to this?” I looked at her paper. At the top of the worksheet she wrote each of [...]

Slice of Life

Link your Slice here. Happy writing!

From the Past: Gearing up for a Classroom SOLS Challenge

In February 2009, Stacey wrote this post about bringing the Slice of Life Challenge into the classroom. Check it out for some of her ideas, including an announcement sent home with students explaining the challenge. If you are a classroom teacher, you may want to bring the challenge into your classroom. Kids don’t have to [...]

Sundays for the Soul: A Challenge!

The Annual Slice of Life Challenge is coming soon! In March, we challenge you to write. Every. Single. Day. I know it’s not easy to write, post, and link every single day in the month of March. That’s why it is a challenge. Still, Slice of Life Challenge is good for the soul because: Writing [...]

Words That are Speaking to Me

Doing the really challenging work of teaching writing can be so lonely when, day in and day out, you seem to be making things more complicated for yourself while everyone around you is doing stuff that just seems, well, so much easier. —Katie Wood Ray

From the Past: Keep Embracing Imperfection

The power of workshop teaching is the focus on individuals — not products. It’s an essential shift for us to make as teachers of writing. Our energy is behind students — where they are today as writers and helping them to get better. (Our energy is not on posting perfect pieces in the hallway.) We know our [...]

Conferring? Please Help!

So first, Wow! Thank you for the comments on the last post. You have no idea how comments fuel me as a writer. Thanks for taking the time. And second, I think this is an important comment to highlight in its own post. Ashlee, on Wednesday February 16, 2011 at 8:34 pm said: I am [...]

Conferring: Knowing when to walk away

Conferring is arguably the most important part of writing workshop. It is definitely more important than the minilesson, although I’m not sure it is more important than sharing. That’s not the point of this post, though. I’ve noticed sometimes I don’t teach in a conference. Yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to have a teaching [...]

C’mon & Join Us!

Only two more Tuesdays until the month long Slice of Life Challenge begins on March 1! If you are considering joining the challenge, I’d like to invite you to give it a whirl today or next week. It helps to make sure all of the kinks are worked out. It is important to link your [...]

I {Heart} Writing Workshop

In honor of Valentine’s Day, let’s make a luscious list of all the reasons we love writing workshop. I’ll start the list here and you add to it in the comments. Sweet! Writing workshop helps writers see the world differently. When people live like writers, they have more compassion and mercy and acceptance of others. [...]

Nonfiction Writing Celebration

I’ve just gotta tell you, I attended an incredible writing celebration today. Not only was the celebration itself cool, but the way it evolved rocked too. It was a true collaboration. It is teachers like Gretchen and Christi who push me to become a better teacher. So the celebration . . . how do I [...]

From the Past: Change the World

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do [...]

Voices Matter

It’s been striking me recently how self-confidence and independence as a writer hinges on knowing your voice matters. When young writers know their words make a difference, then they are more confident, are willing to take risks, and are motivated to write. I also believe this is a difference in classrooms where students are encouraged [...]

Slice of Life Tuesday

My apologies Early Bird Slicers . . . I fell asleep super early last night & woke up super late this morning. I’m fighting a cold. Still, I can’t wait to read your slices — link away.

It’s a Choice

This spoke to me from my Twitter feed today: As educators standing in this place in our field, we have a choice. We can look out and see problems and despair or possibility and promise. — Lucy Calkins, quoted in Tweet by Katie Keier Katie wrote Catching Readers Before They Fall (Stenhouse, 2010) with Pat [...]

Sundays for the Soul: Together We Can End Modern Day Slavery

Did you know most of the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa beans picked by workers who do not receive a fair wage? Sometimes the workers are children and they are hurt if they don’t work fast enough. Other times the workers are not paid at all, making them slaves. With Valentine’s Day a little more than a [...]

Words that are Speaking to Me

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” — Scott Adams Have you heard about Sara Zarr’s speech for the SCBWI conference in NY? Anyone lucky enough to be in attendance? Her worlds are inspirational. You can read about it on The Official SCBWI Conference Blog.

Happy Writers Society

I stumbled across Natalie Whipple’s blog, Between Fact and Fiction, and am a better writer because of it. I appreciate her straightforward, genuine way of looking the hard stuff of writing straight in the eye and then being brave enough to peel back the layers of emotions and write about it. Originally I planned to [...]

“New” Kinds of Readers

We’ve been reading How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills (check out Tad’s website) since its release last summer. It is one of my son’s favorite books. He loves dogs and reading, so this book is a great match for him. A few weeks ago he said to my mom, “Mimi, let’s Google Rocket [...]

Stop Waiting to Start a Blog Day

March is just around the corner (she says, when today is a level 1 snow emergency), which means not only are blooming flowers and warming temps a few weeks away, but so is the Annual Slice of Life Challenge. The challenge was started as a way to encourage teachers to write. The single best way [...]