I recently spent a week in Omaha, Nebraska conducting writing workshop inservices.   The Omaha teachers were fabulous and had so much to offer!  It was a high-energy, roll-up-our-sleeves week in which I was definitely both the teacher and the learner.  

I was reminded of what a gift…

Last month I was back in High Bridge, NJ, one of my very favorite places to be, demonstrating writing lessons and student conferences in the classroom.  Now here is a school (dedicated principal,  talented and highly committed teachers, engaged students) that can’t help but make me…

Next week, my second young adult novel will be out.  I don’t think there was any intention on my publisher’s part to release this book during National Poetry Month, but it’s apropro just the same.  You see, Nola and her younger…

I’m recently back from presenting a school inservice and an author day at the Kateri School in the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation in Quebec.  Second graders in Ms Fran’s class created a stunning welcome banner  — my first in the Mohawk language.  I just…

 Oh, how we embraced publishing students’ work in the early years of writer’s workshop! Many schools had a “publishing center” where parent volunteers came to type and bind student work. Covers were cardboard, decorated with wallpaper samples, held together with duct tape.  Although…

 “Teaching voice is easier than I thought,” a fourth grade teacher recently said after watching a modeled lesson. I knew exactly what he meant. Voice is the hardest trait to define, but even very young writers recognize it when they…

On Saturday, I participated in a "Kids Heart Authors" book signing at Children’s Book Cellar in Waterville, Maine. Also present was Maria Padian signing her first YA novel, Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, and author/illustrator Kevin Hawkes who read from…

Second Installment

Okay, so your students have come to recognize that, yes, story often begins with a character who wants something. Does this mean the character gets what he or she wants right off the bat? No way! (Not unless the…

I recently heard from Nancy, a teacher in Bangor, Maine, asking what types of resources I’d recommend attaching to fourth grade writing folders. Knowing that action brings energy to writing, I suggested she attach a list of lively verbs. It…