In the ideal Writers’ Workshop, students will write about topics of their choice that they are passionate about. This sometimes leads to frustration on the part of the students because they have a hard time figuring out what they want to write about and many times we hear comments like “I have nothing to write […]
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Guest Post: Mind Mapping with Signposts (Readers’ Workshop)
Guest post by Julia Swanner, Baylor University Intern, and Liz Hagins, Midway ISD Teacher The preface: In our PreAP 8th grade English class, my mentor teacher and I were noticing a severe lack of enthusiasm for reading expository writing, specifically breaking down passages to get to the core of them. We implemented Kylene Beers’s nonfiction “signposts” […]
Growing Readers in Middle School
This month I was hired to do the best job imaginable, model a Readers’ Workshop. At the end of March I took a whole cart of great fiction (mostly off the Lone Star Reading List) into 6 different sixth grade classrooms, with the one goal of hooking kids on a book. I prepared a mini-lesson […]