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…

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…

 “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…