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To ensure they are all making progress, regardless of their starting points

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To ensure they are all making progress, regardless of their starting points

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I promise to meet you where you are. I promise to build a personal relationship with each of my students, getting to know what they love, what they don't, what gets them excited to come to school each day. I promise to get to know you as an individual so that I can create instruction that works for you. 

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I promise to meet you where you are. I promise to build a personal relationship with each of my students, getting to know what they love, what they don't, what gets them excited to come to school each day. I promise to get to know you as an individual so that I can create instruction that works for you. 

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Meeting the students where they are and helping them to grow and embrace their successes

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Meeting the students where they are and helping them to grow and embrace their successes

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To meet them where they are and take them further along their reading writing journey.

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To meet them where they are and take them further along their reading writing journey.

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To give clear expectations in order to support student agency in their learning

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jen shows how small groups increase time for meeting individual students’ needs. You’ll work closelt with more readers each day using assessment

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Dunecrest K-5: Focus, Goal, and Look Fors

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Jennifer Serravallo

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Strategies and lessons for teaching writing in Kindergarten through elementary to seventh grade with differentiation and inquiry. Complete guide with ideas for small group guided, shared, and interactive writing. Improve engagement and independence though social support and teacher feedback.

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Hattie, Frey, Fisher, 2019

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Kelly Boswell

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Sometimes the hardest part about teaching writing is getting students to write at all. Kelly Boswell reminds us that every writer is reluctant to write

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M. Colleen Cruz

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Real Strategies for the Real Classroom

Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier-lack of time-Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles.

For
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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier-lack of time-Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles.

For the struggles unique to you, she includes a " Name Your Monster " section that helps you identify your own individual roadblocks and even offers sustainable support through her blog, colleencruz.com. "We can't solve all the problems we're faced with in writing instruction," Colleen promises, "but we can choose how to respond to them. And our responses will make all the difference."

What makes you unstoppable, or what's stopping you? Connect with Colleen on her blog at www.colleencruz.com/blog.htm or on Twitter, #unstoppablewritingteacher.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

1. A Teaching Mindset

2. "I don't know what to teach this student. He's a much better writer than I am."

3. "I can't seem to get my students to stay writing unless I'm sitting beside them."

4. "I'm not sure how to work with students who are new to English."

5. "I'm finding some student writing repetitive and boring."

6. "I don't feel prepared to work with a student with such great challenges."

7. "I never have enough time."

8. "I need more resources."

9. "I teach grammar but my kids don't learn it."

10. "I feel alone in my work. No one else I know teaches using the writing workshop model."

11. "I have trouble getting families to understand writing workshop."

12. "I want students to write about what they care about, but so much of what they care about seems brainless and artificial to me."

13. Name Your Monster

14. Five Shockingly Easy Ways to Constantly Outgrow Yourself as a Teacher of Writing

Companion Resources

Reviews

"Writing is struggle. If we want our students to become strong writers, then they have to become brave ones. We have to model that bravery in how we teach writing by naming the monsters that challenge us and facing them. Once you finish this book, you'll be well-prepared. You'll know more about the teaching of writing. You'll be braver. You'll be unstoppable. &ldquo from the Foreword by Lucy Calkins

"Hold the phone! Colleen Cruz has given us much more than a writing book here. The Unstoppable Writing Teacher descends into the proverbial trenches and shines a realistic light on the daily life of teachers everywhere. Each chapter addresses universal questions that teachers ponder every day. In the end, teaching writing is rocket science. Read this book and you will learn a great deal about teaching writing, and even more about kids, teachers and life in general." Stephanie Harvey

"The beauty of Colleen Cruz's The Unstoppable Writing Teacher is that it anticipates and addresses the many barriers that writing teachers face and, in doing so, offers smart and practical steps to building strong, independent writers. I love Cruz's notion that good writing teachers are both scientists and artists. It is her mix of science and art that makes this an important book for anyone who teaches writing. I highly recommend it. Kelly Gallagher

Would you benefit from having a literacy coach on-call to help you solve pressing writing workshop-related problems? Colleen Cruz tackles teachers' most predictable workshop-related issues in The Unstoppable Writing Teacher. It's a must-read this summer so that you'll be the unstoppable writing teacher you want to be when school starts this fall. Stacey Shubitz for Two Writing Teachers

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Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom-and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.

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Connect with educators around the world!

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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EKC

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colleen@erinkentconsulting.com

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Zaretta Hammond

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From math, literacy, equity, multilingual learners, and SEL, to assessment, school counseling, and education leadership, our books are research-based and authored by experts on topics most relevant to what educators are facing today.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

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In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.

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Compass Points for Understanding Preferences in Group Work

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Compass Points for Understanding Preferences in Group Work

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School Reform Initiative

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After identifying top values, engage in some private reflection and then a reflective conversation together. How do my values show up at work? How to my values show up in collaboration?

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National Equity Project

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To include everyone and meet them
where they are at

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Everyone is a writer and reader🥰

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Safe space to share developing ideas

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Everyone has a voice.

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To ensure, they feel safe, happy, and inspired and are continually learning

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To ensure, they feel safe, happy, and inspired and are continually learning

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Provide joyful opportunities around reading and writing

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Model reading and writing daily for my students. Share my own passion with them so that they too can learn to love reading and writing.

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I promise to provide each student with a safe and supportive learning environment.

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I promise to provide each student with a safe and supportive learning environment.

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I promise all students will feel at ease and happy and will be supported fully to make reading and writing easier.

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Planning for Strategy Groups - Process & Examples

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Planning for Strategy Groups - Process & Examples

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Planning for Strategy Groups - Process and Examples

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Got: LOTS of great road maps to help us as we begin to plan our small groups/1:1 conferences
Want: Would love to see specific examples of pulling a writing small group

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Tips on organizing assessment forms

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GOT: Lots of a great ideas and tools we can use for gathering quick data on students to help create strategy groups

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Got - Goal is on writing, focusing on talking out their story across the pages before drawing beginning, middle and end.

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Got - Goal is on writing, focusing on talking out their story across the pages before drawing beginning, middle and end.

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More tools / ideas for supporting our struggling learners who are 3/4 grade levels below.

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Got- Good partner plan for collecting data and focusing in on a specific group of students to develop their fluency.

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I liked the "look fors" formative assessments

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Got: Lots of time to get conversations started about how this can relate in Math

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Got: Loved how to look at assessment and collecting data from a different perspective.

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Architecture of Small Group Strategy Lessons

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Architecture of Small Group Strategy Lessons

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Amanda small group on information writing

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Using a Learning Progression to Help Students Work Towards Clear Goals as they Lift the Level of Their Information Writing (K-2)

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Small Group - Sarah - CVCe Words with Long Vowels - Interactive Editing - K-2

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Comparing and Contrasting Fairy Tales (K-2)

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Lucy Calkins and Colleagues at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project present Comparing and Contrasting Fairy Tales (K-2)

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Gots: Architecture of a lesson, options for how to schedule our week
Wants: Nothing right now...thanks, Colleen!!

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Got: structure that can work in math
Wants: time, always more time... : P

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GOTS - I feel more confident with the idea of the template checklist and how to efficiently use it in the classroom. I also can see how the differentiation planning can directly connect to the data.

WANTS - More diverse examples/scenarios for various content areas.

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Gots: How to plan and run a small group more effectively.
Wants: (Quick question)We have eleven lessons of ELA a week, what would be a good breakdown for number of lessons for writing, reading and word study?

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Got idea to use more small groups
Got idea to collect more data
Want: How to better apply to specialists who see many students less frequently

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Gots - I can now use my data to organise my small strategy groups.  My IA Alex will focus on 8 students across the week with clear focus in mind.

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Gots - I can now use my data to organise my small strategy groups.  My IA Alex will focus on 8 students across the week with clear focus in mind.

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Dunecrest K-5 Partner Goal Setting: Focus, Goal, and Look Fors

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Blank Formative Assessment Conferring Grid

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Blank Formative Assessment Conferring Grid

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Blank Formative Assessment Conferring Grid - Make a Copy

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Make a copy

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Formative Assessment Boxes - Make a Copy

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Make a copy

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G3 Expert Books REVISION Checklist - Example

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The micro progressions were really great and the student sign-ups

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The micro progressions were really great and the student sign-ups

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Great to have time carved out to bounce pedagogical ideas off another specialist teacher even though we don't share a subject

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Great to have time carved out to bounce pedagogical ideas off another specialist teacher even though we don't share a subject

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Gots: Our lens, plan, and implementation
Wants: Any G2 resources on phonological awareness would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Colleen!

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Got: A great tool to use for assessment 

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Got: A great tool to use for assessment 

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Got - Self-Assessment can be cross-curricular.

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It was great working with G4 & G5.  I have a clear path of where I need to go with the students that I support in relation to the whole class.

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It was great working with G4 & G5.  I have a clear path of where I need to go with the students that I support in relation to the whole class.

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Partnership Process - Putting the Pieces Together

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Partnership Process - Putting the Pieces Together

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Analyzing Formative Assessment & Documenting Trends

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Planning Across a Week Example & Planner

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Planning Across a Week Example & Planner

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LINK TO WEEKLY PLANNER (make a copy)

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PE/IT Assign different roles to students when working in groups, and then rotate roles to be sure all students can complete all tasks.

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Creating more agency where students can select their area of need and focus each math lesson.

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we were talking about strategy groups that students sign up for in Grade 4,5 math.  We were discussing how we might have them make their own timetable for the class about how they spent their time to learn the concept.  Ie in partnerships, individually or in a skill group . 

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we were talking about strategy groups that students sign up for in Grade 4,5 math.  We were discussing how we might have them make their own timetable for the class about how they spent their time to learn the concept.  Ie in partnerships, individually or in a skill group . 

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Interactive writing using transition words

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Interactive writing using transition words

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Students in pairs will complete missing words.
Describing what I see more...
Checking with Ruth what is working well with her look fors

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We want to explore conferring during Writing (emphasizing on transferring skills during Word Study).

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Focus more on small groups in each lesson. Even if it is a quick meet up.

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Focus more on small groups in each lesson. Even if it is a quick meet up.

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Using their student checklists to determine strategy grouping

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Using their student checklists to determine strategy grouping

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Use small groups to my advantage during recorder lessons. Have students team up with other students of similar playing abilities to practice songs at their level. As students move up in skill level, they can join new practice groups.

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Use small groups to my advantage during recorder lessons. Have students team up with other students of similar playing abilities to practice songs at their level. As students move up in skill level, they can join new practice groups.

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What's a takeaway for you from today's session? What do you want to explore further?

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What's a takeaway for you from today's session? What do you want to explore further?

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This reminded me of the importance of collaborating with our colleagues and provided some examples for how we might do this in today's climate we all teach in.

I'd like more time to digest this and plan what it might look like with the restrictions we have.

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I am excited for the "gift" of student assessment data to support student learning.