Gustavo, the Shy Ghost by Flavia Z. Drago is a heartwarming story of bravery, friendship, and self-expression—making it a rich mentor text for writing exercises across various disciplines. With its themes of shyness, the supernatural, and the courage to be seen, Gustavo’s journey offers endless opportunities for deep reflection and creativity in classrooms. Let’s explore how you can use this story as a springboard for disciplinary writing in all subject areas!

Generative writing is a powerful tool in K-12 education, fostering creativity and self-expression among students. One engaging method to stimulate this creativity is through heart maps, originally developed by Georgia Heard. These visual and reflective exercises help students explore their emotions, experiences, and relationships, ultimately enhancing their writing fluency and confidence. Here’s how you can implement heart maps in any secondary classroom in any content area.

I wanted to share these playlists because on Fridays, we do Friday Free Write. Students love to listen to music, but sometimes it also helps if we collectively have music playing overhead. I have two playlists in this post: Music with Words and Background Music. I included as many lyrics videos as possible because I feel like the music that we play in our classrooms is directly related to our personal tastes and the standard of what we feel is “appropriate.” I know my personal tastes in music are represented in my playlists. I did enjoy putting these lists together because it almost felt like I was a teenager burning a CD again. I tried to balance genres, but I tend to be heavy in R&B, Hip-Hop, and Soul. We sometimes have a “one artist” day like Michael Jackson and John Legend. Kids love listening to both current and old hits.

Please make sure you preview music before sharing if you are unfamiliar with the artist, genre, or song. While I would play the music on these playlists, it does not mean everyone would consider them appropriate.

Please make sure you preview music before sharing if you are unfamiliar with the artist, genre, or song. While I would play the music on these playlists, it does not mean everyone would consider them appropriate.

November content is all about research writing, gratitude, and personal learning goals.

NOVEMBER FEATURES:

• Research and Inquiry Writing Assignment Resources (Teaching tips, grading information, lesson examples, etc)

• Sports fiction book recommendations for kids

• Gratitude & Giving Visual Creative Writing Quick Writes

• Mini-Webinar on Journaling for Personal Learning

• Gratitude Log and Gratitude Tickets for Students and Teacher Friends

• Planning materials including a coffee-themed teacher planner to start looking toward 2024

• Grant outline to make getting materials easy for your classroom (New year, new books?)

October content that focuses on informational writing, horror and scary book recommendations, and added resources for sub plans, warm-ups, and creative writing.

Grab your copy of Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success by Dr. Christopher Emdin. Let’s get started for the month of October!

September content that focuses on finding routines, becoming laser-focused on self-care, argumentative writing, and planning a year built on a framework for equity.

Grab your copy of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad! Let’s get started for the month of September.

At the heart of the literacy classroom, you find stories. All kinds of stories. Especially in the middle-grade classroom, the personal narrative assignment seems to be the quintessential writing process project and often the first project done with students as a means to get to know who is in our classrooms. This is just one way to do a personal narrative project (out of many). Please take what you need to inspire your own teaching craft, and then tap into all of the amazing stories you have in front of you.

• Step-by-step instructions for teaching a narrative writing project

• Lesson ideas you can use now

• Group narrative writing projects to bring your classroom community together

Dialogue is an essential element of storytelling, bringing characters to life and adding depth to narratives. As English Language Arts (ELA) educators, it is crucial to teach students the proper use of quotation marks and rules of dialogue. By mastering these skills, students can effectively convey conversations, enhance their writing, and develop a strong command of punctuation. In this blog post, I explore the importance of using quotation marks and the rules of dialogue, along with practical tips for teaching these concepts in the ELA classroom. Quotation marks serve two primary functions in writing: indicating direct speech and enclosing titles of short works. In this post, let’s focus on dialogue as it shows up in works of fiction or narratives.

July and August mark the beginning of a new season of school. While many view this time of year with mixed emotions, the idea of back-to-school planning is often met with a particular groan. It is hard to narrow down what to teach our kids when we haven’t met them yet. We want to create activities that will help us get to know them, but we also have to balance building expectations, district expectations, curriculum needs, and any pre-assessments or standardized testing. The time blocks can fill up, and it can be easy to feel like time is running away from you.

This post contains 5 areas that you can consider when doing your back-to-school planning. Specifically, I will be talking to literacy teachers in classrooms grades 4-10, but everyone can pick up some of these ideas and apply the concepts to their own classroom. You can also feel free to steal my first two weeks of school already planned out in detail in this post.

At each step of the process in this post, I will stop and show you some things I consider when I plan for that part of the lesson. These considerations come from the questions and experiences from teaching the mentor text routine to sixth graders. I teach these lessons to students with third-grade level reading and eleventh-grade level reading in the same room. I have coached teachers that have ranged from 4th grade to 10th grade with this process. The results are the same, but you may have to adjust the strategies for your content and level.

These considerations are not meant to be overwhelming, but I want to share what has worked for me along the way. I have also broken them down in terms of estimated time. When I was doing mentor text work daily it took 5-10 minutes each day because of the routine that I chose to implement in my room. One single mentor text lesson taught alone might take 20-25 minutes.

This quickstart guide walks you through everything you need to get started with teaching mentor texts in your classroom right away. There are 7 key elements to teaching mentor texts. At the end of this post, download the free template to get started with a book of your choice! You will also have access to my mentor text work. This includes 180+ slides and sentence frames featuring 55+ books.

The I Am series by Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds is one of the most identifiable book series in classrooms and stores. The art by Peter Reynolds is so specific to him, and the books have almost become synonymous with social & emotional text lists, mindfulness, and meditation for young people. There are 7 books in the series. This post covers 4 of them and how to use them in your classroom for teaching mindfulness through read-aloud and also writer moves for kids through mentor texts. While the recommended reading age for the books often states 3-7, these mentor texts could be used in any level classroom.

Let’s dive into using the I Am series as a whole group mentor text, and then let’s take a quick look at how 4 of the books can be broken down further for writing moves.

August content that focuses on planning for a new year, getting inspired, and focusing on poetry and narrative writing to build your classroom community.

I feel like having a toddler around has helped me understand the role of sensory work and play far better than before parenthood. I even look back on my own childhood and remember moments where I can recall feeling dysregulated or something was off. I never liked the feeling of itchy socks on my toes. I hated having my hair done because of how it felt. When I initially started learning more about sensory play, one of the most powerful pieces was that everyone has sensory needs. Sensory regulation does not require a diagnosis, label, or “special” treatment. We all have the power to feel regulated or dysregulated by the work of the senses. Incorporating sensory experiences into the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom can ignite students' creativity, deepen their understanding, and make writing come alive. By engaging multiple senses, educators can create a dynamic and immersive environment that inspires students to express themselves through writing. We can also help our students regulate their own systems and challenge behavior issues that are tied to classroom management. In this blog post, we will explore 10 sensory writing activities that can transform the ELA classroom into a hub of sensory exploration and literary expression.

What could be better than working with mentor texts AND talking about food? I love The Food Group series from Jory John and Pete Oswald. All of the picture books in this series feature a type of food and then a description that hints at the story behind the food. The whole series can be used in a variety of ways in any classroom grades 4-12. These books would also make great introductory activities and back-to-school mentor texts because kids love talking about food (I mean, most of us like talking about food). This post is a breakdown of how to apply The Food Group series to lessons as a whole, and then it includes details in a few of the books so you can see the mentor text examples. I will also remind everyone of the mentor text process of how to use books to teach writing to kids.

Hope you are hungry! Let’s write.

Reading like a writer is a skill that allows us to delve deeper into the intricacies of storytelling, characters, and the art of crafting meaningful prose. It invites us to go beyond simply enjoying a story and instead, to analyze the author's choices, techniques, and writing style. We can unravel the layers of The Wild Robot by Peter Brown to uncover the secrets that make this book a remarkable mentor text for the middle school classroom, and learn how to apply these insights to the teaching of writing. From grammar to writing moves, the published books kids are already reading can be one of the most powerful tools for teaching kids to write in any genre.

Peter Brown's The Wild Robot is an extraordinary adventure alongside Roz, a robot thrust into a wild and unfamiliar environment. This post outlines the writer's moves throughout four different parts of the book including figurative language, character development and description, and the interplay between plot and setting.

You can also check out my daily/weekly lesson plans for using this book as a mentor text and my corresponding slide presentation.

Teachers have been asking for help for years all the while doing the work of multiple professionals in one work week. Between lesson planning, grading, communication to home, activities, and the actual working with kids during the school day, teachers have long been burning out. The newfound trends with AI (Artificial Intelligence) have taken the world of business by storm, with many saying that “you are behind if you aren’t using AI.” Yet, as a former classroom teacher, I was hesitant to check it out. It felt like plagiarism. It reeked of cheating. But, then I adopted a new approach:

What if AI can help teachers do the tasks that take up so much time so that teachers can actually focus on the work of teaching kids?

This post explores the transformative potential of AI in the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. AI has rapidly evolved, paving the way for innovative educational tools and resources that can empower educators to create dynamic and personalized learning environments. In the realm of secondary ELA, AI can serve as a virtual assistant, offering a plethora of benefits ranging from lesson planning and differentiation to supporting English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Language Learners (ELL) students. With AI by your side, you can unleash your creativity, efficiency, and effectiveness as an ELA educator. Specifically, let’s look at how AI can help out with the everyday tasks of teaching including lesson planning, activity preparation, and differentiation to be inclusive of all types of learners.

This post is for anyone who judges a book by the cover or the first page. When it comes to narrative writing of any kind, the opening lines can make all the difference in captivating readers' attention. Narrative hooks are the secret ingredient that sets the stage for a compelling narrative. In this blog post, I provide a step-by-step guide to teaching narrative hooks in the secondary ELA classroom, empowering students to craft captivating beginnings that hook their readers from the start. You can take from my own lesson examples, or use the stories I use to design your own lesson.

I think one of the hardest things to implement in any classroom, let alone an English Language Arts classroom, has got to be incorporating opportunities for students to speak to one another about content. Talking with teachers, many of them voice concerns about the management of speaking and listening activities and being afraid of the “chaos” that might ensue when we put students in charge of talking about what they are learning. If we as teachers are brave enough to let out students focus on speaking and listening skills and strategies, it might just be the key to unlocking great reading and writing learning. Effective communication lies at the heart of language arts education. Developing strong speaking and listening skills is crucial for students to express themselves confidently, comprehend information, engage in meaningful discussions, and collaborate effectively. In this blog post, we will explore 25+ strategies that all educators (not just ELA) can implement in any classroom to promote and enhance students' speaking and listening abilities.