the big picture.
Yesterday I received a note in snail mail from a former student who graduated this year. Here is what it said, typed as closely as possible to the original: Thank you Mrs. Ayres,… Read More
Category Archive: writing workshop
Making Mentor Poems Accessible At Any Time
Mentor Poems Bulletin Board, originally uploaded by teachergal. I realized the other day that it was unfair to only provide extra mentor poems, from my mentor poems binder, to kids when I conferred… Read More
Summer Reading.
At my daughter’s k – 3 school, there is a summer reading challenge. Each year the challenge changes, but the idea is to encourage a LOT of reading over the summer. This year… Read More
Thomas Sweet: The Evolution of My Blend-Ins
My father began taking me to Thomas Sweet Ice Cream Shop when I was around six or seven years old. He introduced me to Blend-Ins, which is ice cream that is blended with… Read More
Teaching Figurative Language with Mentor Poems
I was conferring with one of my students in Writing Workshop yesterday and quickly found, as I researched, my compliment (meaningful line breaks while drafting) and teaching point (using figurative language, specifically similes).… Read More
“Memoir Mondays” Inspiration
Is there a place you have been eating at for years… by yourself or with family? Is it a place you come back to for comfort food again and again? Have you celebrated… Read More
thinking things through.
The past week of my professional life has been dedicated to meeting with teachers and reflecting on their writing workshops. The gist of our meetings involves discussing successes and general good stuff happening… Read More
The Queen of Forms Page Led Me to Create This!
elementary school version of the end of the year reflection tool that ruth created Originally uploaded by teachergal I went to Ruth’s Queen of Forms Page, as per her earlier post today, to… Read More
remember this.
From time to time I check in on Sara Holbrook’s blog. Today I was shocked and saddened by the death of her 7 year old granddaughter earlier this month. I was also touched by… Read More
end of the year student reflection.
Last week I posted an end of the year refection for teachers to use to assess their writing workshops. I also believe it’s important for students to do this same sort of work. … Read More
Ruth’s SOLSC: Keeping Company.
Sunday morning the little voice came to me through the monitor, “Momma, I’m uuuupppp.” Since I was single-parenting-it (due to some massive sporting event in Indy that my husband was attending) and had just… Read More
Poetry: 50 Stories Above the Surface
Prudential Center: Skywalk Observatory Originally uploaded by teachergal The entire fourth grade went high on Friday. What did we do? We went up to the Skywalk Observatory at the Prudential Center in Boston.… Read More
“Responding to Poetry” – Form Evolution
Kate and I have been going back-and-forth with “the best” format we can use for getting our kids to start responding to poetry. After something didn’t work as well with my fourth graders… Read More
Writing Workshop Teacher – Reflection
A few days ago Ruth blogged about “end of the year reflections,” where she posted a link to her wiki where one could download an end of the year teaching reflection about Writing… Read More
Rubric: Memoir Unit of Study
When I woke up this morning, I realized I never created an assessment rubric for memoir! My first thought was :How could I forget to do that!??! My second thought was: The Publishing… Read More
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…
Draft II: A Letter Back to a Student Originally uploaded by teachergal This note is a response to a student who turned-in her second draft yesterday. She did a phenomenal job mentoring herself… Read More
