It's Sunday evening. I want to post a mentor text, but my brain, she be empty. I tumble through my thoughts, flip through my mental card...

Those of you that talk to me on any kind of a regular basis know about my love for Wired Magazine . I love every issue that comes out, and...

Here is a presentation I made to help me introduce the concept of Magic Realism at Young Writers Camp.  Feel free to use it, and all images ...

I'm puttering around this post trying to figure out how to describe what became, this Spring, a phenomenon in my classroom. It's...

Briefly, I define mentor texts as a piece of a writing used as a model.  There is more to it, but let's start there.  Eventually, I'...

From a student journal today.  We've been writing 15 minutes a day all year .   This makes my heart smile. Late start. Barely m...

Today we started to write memoirs. While I'm glad to share the steps leading up to these very-first-inkling drafts, I'd rather just ...

More specifically, 100 Good Things. I discovered a new magazine recently.  I was drawn in by the cover (see photo to the left).  True, the...

The Scene: Journal-writing time.  The schmoopies are all writing .  In fact, they all started writing early--before the bell rang (!!!).  ...

I posted yesterday about my students and their journal writing.  I asked permission to share some of the entries.  I'll show a series f...

I re-learned something I think I knew once. Journal-writing is good. Systematic sustained writing on a daily basis improves writing.  It jus...

Earlier this week I told you about something I was going to try in my classroom-- Storybirds . Well my caped friends, the birds they are a...

Earlier this summer I was struck by a piece of brilliance. No jokes please.... I was watching the new Green Lantern movie  and learnin...

I made many promises ( here and here ) that I would be posting in full force this Spring and Summer.  I was wrong.  Flat o...

In our recent discussion of folktales , we listed the following components: 1.  A powerful person 2.  A not-so-powerful person 3. Twis...

The lesson of the day was "elaboration."  We talked for a while about the difference between elaboration, exaggeration, and lies. ...

Do not fear!  This is the good kind of wreckage!  I promised you, way back in the olden days of yore, that I would share more from the Wreck...