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…

I am posting my article about Writing Centers from my weekly primary newsletter  in hopes that you will share your list! What works well for you?  (scroll down)

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…

Tomorrow is the publication date of  No More "I’m Done!" and I couldn’t be more excited.  Thank you to all of who’ve written to express your anticipation.

This book explores the ways in which we teachers, with the very best of intentions,…

I just learned the meaning of this word, decalogue, this week.  First I stumbled across the website of NNWP Teacher Consultant, Corbett Harrison who provides wonderful mini-lessons to use with mentor texts.  He recommends reading chapter four of Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, which contains a…

 I received an email from a teacher this week who wrote:

 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…

I have always loved January.  I love the calmness after the holidays. I love that there are almost four solid weeks of non-interrupted teaching. I love that the month is all about setting and reaching personal goals. 

 “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…

Why do we write? To communicate, and communication requires audience.    Without audience our desire to write and to improve our writing diminishes.

So once you’ve introduced students to the pattern of three in literature, and they come to you regularly pointing out the pattern in the books they’re reading, how do you help them to use this pattern in their own writing?

I…

Perhaps you think of it as a circular ending, but one favorite technique for ending pieces – particularly short pieces – is by having the ending reflect the beginning. Here are three of my favorite examples.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by…

So, we’ve arrived at the topic of conclusions. Endings are hard. Let me say that again: ENDINGS ARE HARD! 
 

Last week I wrote the ending of my newest middle grade novel.  Observe the writer at work: she’s fidgety, she’s irritable, her brain feels incapable of functioning. She paces, she…

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…

Allow me to model my writing process for a moment. Every time I begin a new piece, I ask myself two questions:

1. What do I want to write about?
2. How am I going to organize my writing?

Once I know the…

Rose mentioned “Quiet Ten.” Today, after the abundance of Thanksgiving (food, conversation, catching-up, laughter), Quiet Ten seems like a perfect topic.

What is Quiet Ten?
It’s a technique I developed while teaching first grade that works beautifully for all ages. (Though in…

Time and time again, teachers tell me their students resist revision. Of course they do. Deep down all of us wish words flowed magically from our fingertips with no further work required. Unfortunately, it rarely works that way.
 

Here’s what revision is not:…