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1. I am excited to create mini lessons that support our units and the intended learned goals and skills we are developing.

2. I am looking forward to working with different small groups and individual students in conferences.

3. I would like to have time as a Year 7 team to develop and implement our learning.

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Seeing ways to develop mini-lessons in small groups was very helpful. Having some time to develop progressive task specific rubrics collectively with the MS teaching team was useful in getting a sense of what happens between levels and where students are with skills along the way. If we could have some more time to work with the team on that to further build rubrics across the grades, that would help us to better serve our students.

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Really helpful resource when thinking about writing across content areas

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The Writing Revolution - Empower teachers to help students

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By training educators in The Hochman Method©, The Writing Revolution (TWR) aims to help all students become proficient writers, readers, and critical thinkers.

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How Fiction Transforms Student Writers

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

In Writing Unbound, Tom Newkirk argues that as a teaching profession, we shoot ourselves in the foot when it comes to writing. We fail to take advantage of a huge opportunity that is before us. That opportunity is fiction writing.

Consider this: Our deepest wish is for students to develop a love of books- particularly a love of fiction. To discover the power of stories to transport us into worlds we never knew existed. At the same time, we want them to build a love of writing. To really love it; not just endure it.

So if these are our two primary goals, how did they become so disparate? Why is the writing we're asking our students to do so completely opposite from the fiction they enjoy reading? "My worry," Tom Newkirk writes, "is that we have been asked to buy a lie-or rather a series of them. That analytic writing is somehow a higher form of thinking than story, that "creativity" is for the talented few, and that fiction writing is unteachable... If we accept these lies, we lose our birthright as English teachers."

Through 40 in-depth interviews with student writers as well as teachers of writing, Newkirk builds an argument for bringing fiction back into our writing curriculum as a way to strengthen all writing. He addresses the common obstacles and resistance to fiction and illustrates, through students and teachers' insights, why keeping fiction writing on the outside of school walls is a missed opportunity. "If reading fiction is humanizing and valuable," Tom writes, "the same, perhaps even stronger, case can be made for writing fiction."

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

1. Writing Unbound, The Missed Opportunity of Fiction Writing

2. Meet Ernest

3. Fiction Versus Nonfiction Or, Why I'd Rather Not Write About Parking Meters

4. The Writing Zone

5. Going Deep: Fiction and Psychological Insight

Interchapter: Language, Violence, and Distress-Beyond
Censorship

6. Going Short: Four Invitations

7. Going Long: Writing the Novel

8. Going Close: What Does It Take to Be a Good Reader of Student Work?

Credo: What's the Story?

Reviews

"Writing Unbound removes guardrails from writers (and their teachers) to unpack how skills migrate from type to type. That would be enough for any book, surely. Worth the cost of a few lattes. But Newkirk and a collection of wise young students convincingly answer an essential question for English teachers: can writing fiction improve all writing? The exercises and examples sent my thinking spinning faster with each chapter. As I folded down pages, I found myself answering out loud, "Yes!" This book invites us to be curious, entertained, and inspired by our students. Let the fun-yes, I said the f-word-begin. Delight awaits you here. I promise."-Penny Kittle, coauthor of 180 Days and author of Book Love and "Tom Newkirk is one of those very rare writers from whom I ALWAYS learn something new, and who always forces me to deepen, rethink, revise or defend deeply held positions. Reading anything by him is transformative to my understanding and ways of teaching and being in the world. This book is about so many things, but it's core is about how we can be generous and co-conspirators with learners as they undertake their journeys as writers - and as they use writing to undertake the journeys of their very lives."--Jeffrey Wilhelm, author of Reading Unbound

"What defines us as human beings, perhaps more than anything else? We are storytellers. Stories are the way we understand ourselves. Stories are the way we understand others. Stories are the way we understand the world (and even the worlds beyond our world). So the place of writing in our schools should match the place it has in our minds: as a primary tool of creation, exploration, critical thinking, empathy, imagination, and adventure. In Writing Unbound, Thomas Newkirk helps us understand the vital role that fiction should have in every student's writing education. By writing a new writing education, he gives teachers and students the freedom to dive into their passions, write the stories that matter to them, and pursue that fundamental question of fiction writing: 'What if?' That is the place where innovation and knowledge reside."-Grant Faulkner, Executive Director, National Novel Writing Month

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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more. In Writing Unbound, Tom Newkirk argues that as a teaching profession, we shoot ourselves in the foot when it comes to writing. We fail to take advantage of a huge opportunity that is before us.

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The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Rose Chavez

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The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Rose Chavez

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Home of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Rose Chavez

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Beyond Literary Analysis by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell

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Beyond Literary Analysis by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell

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1. Analysis in the Wild

2. Toward a New Understanding of Analysis

3. The Essential Tools of Analysis

4. Exploring Passion

5. Exploring Ideas

6. Exploring Structure

7. Exploring Authority

8. Movie and Television Analysis

9. Music Analysis

10. Sports Analysis

11. Video Game Analysis

12. Literary Analysis

13. Gathering Your Own Resources

This book is written to help you plan instruction that supports the development of writers, specifically writers who are analyzing texts. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 is an immersion into analytical writing that is current, authentic, and relevant to the students we teach today. We'll use the language of exploration to frame a new way of thinking about analysis. This process of analyzing a text is not unlike an explorer setting sail in search of a new land-a metaphor we'll draw on throughout this book to emphasize the discovery that is possible when students analyze texts of their own choosing. Sections 2 and 3 each begin with their own introduction. Section 2 is your lesson book - your guide to helping students find and explore and write about texts they love. Section 3 promises to be dog-eared and worn by the time you're finished with it. Each chapter is jam-packed with our absolute favorite mentors, mentor texts, and "cheat sheets" for supporting students who are analyzing texts you've never heard of.

With samples throughout the book, you will see what students of all levels and experiences can do when they're invited into the world of authentic analysis and supported with mentor texts, targeted writing instruction, and the opportunity to write about their passions.

This book is for teachers who want to revive the art of analytical writing in their classrooms-from teachers of middle-grade writers who are making their first foray into analytical writing to teachers of experienced twelfth-grade writers who are looking ahead to college where their professors will expect much, much more. In this book, we invite you to explore your teaching of analytical writing from a new perspective. To open your mind to the real world of analytical writing and challenge traditional notions about what students should be analyzing and how they should write. In short, we invite you to arrive where you started and know it for the first time-and to share this journey with your students and celebrate the writing that is born where passion and analysis meet.

- Introduction

"English teachers have been waiting for this book since...well...forever. Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell breathe new life into that semi-comatose assignment-the analytic essay. They ask us to totally reimagine it, to examine how analysis works "in the wild" -on blogs, web sites, Internet reviews, and to expand the range of "texts" students can analyze (music, video games, sports teams, movies). Then drawing on their own classroom work, they show how students can use the lessons from mentor texts in their own writing. A groundbreaking and absolutely essential book." -Thomas Newkirk, author of Embarrassment and Minds Made for Stories

"Are you ready for a mind-bending journey into analytical writing? This book holds a new vision for student engagement grounded in current, authentic, and relevant texts. I guarantee it will upend your understanding of analysis. Full of sentence and passage studies that ignite student voice, mini-lessons that clarify the intent of organizational structures, and a deep understanding of how best to learn from a mentor text, this book will make you a better writing teacher. It's simply brilliant."-Penny Kittle, author of Book Love and coauthor of 180 Days

"Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell take the dusty skeleton of literary analysis and transform it into a responsive, sophisticated, magical genre of writing that we can teach our students to develop and to adore. Using this book will produce the writing that you and your students will cherish most - these are the pieces they will keep, the ones they will publish. Marchetti and O'Dell's work brings relevance, voice, and life to a form that feels crusty and brittle with directions, templates and redundancy. This book will make your students better writers - but it will also help them to enter into the world they encounter with greater passion and insight than ever before."-Kate Roberts, author of A Novel Approach and coauthor of Falling in Love With Close Reading

"As tour guides to a brave new world, Rebekah O'Dell and Allison Marchetti reject the well-worn path of literary analysis and guide teachers to a vibrant new analytical landscape. By reframing the idea of text as anything that has a beginning, middle, and end, O'Dell and Marchetti entertain a "bigger vision for analysis," that helps students find their passion, explore their ideas, assert authority, and build solid structures for writing. Divided into three sections, the book offers an inquiry into traditional analysis, a compendium of practical lessons, and an exploration of sub-genres, such as writing about movies, music, sports, and video games. In addition, this book is chock full of dynamic mentor texts and classroom-ready techniques that will free your students to explore the vistas vital to their lives."-Liz Prather, author of Project-Based Writing

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This book is for teachers who want to revive the art of analytical writing in their classrooms-from teachers of middle-grade writers to teachers of experienced twelfth-grade writers who are looking ahead to college. We invite you to explore your teaching of analytical writing from a new perspective.

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This book is about teaching writing and the gritty particulars of teaching adolescents. But it is also the planning, the thinking, the writing, the journey: all I've been putting into my teaching for the last two decades. This is the book I wanted when I was first given ninth graders and a list of novels to teach. This is a book of vision and hope and joy, but it is also a book of genre units and minilessons and actual conferences with students.
-Penny Kittle

What makes the single biggest difference to student writers? When the invisible machinery of your writing processes is made visible to them. Write Beside Them shows you how to do it. It's the comprehensive book and companion video that English/language arts teachers need to ensure that teens improve their writing.

Across genres, Penny Kittle presents a flexible framework for instruction, the theory and experience to back it up, and detailed teaching information to help you implement it right away. Each section of Write Beside Them describes a specific element of Penny's workshop:

Daily writing practice: writer's notebooks and quick writes

Instructional frameworks: minilessons, organization, conferring, and sharing drafts

Genre work: narrative, persuasion, and writing in multiple genres

Skills work: grammar, punctuation, and style

Assessment: evaluation, feedback, portfolios, and grading

All along the way, Penny demonstrates minilessons that respond to students' immediate needs, and her Student Focus sections profile and spotlight how individual writers grew and changed over the course of her workshop. In addition, Write Beside Them provides a study guide, reproducibles, writing samples from Penny and her students, suggestions for nurturing your own writing life, and a helpful FAQ. Best of all, the online videos take you right inside Penny's classroom, explicitly modeling how to make the process of writing accessible to all kids.

Penny Kittle's active coaching and can-do attitude alone will energize your teaching and inspire you to write with your students. But her strategies, expert advice, and compelling in-class video footage will help you turn inspiration into great teaching. Read Write Beside Them and discover that the most important influence for all young writers is their teacher.

Penny was the recipient of the 2009 NCTE Britton Award for Write Beside Them.

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Penny’s active coaching and can-do attitude alone will energize your teaching and inspire you to write with your students. But her strategies, expert

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180 Days by Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher

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180 Days by Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher

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Section One: Planning Decisions

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section Two: Teaching Essential Discourses

1. Narrative

2. Informational

3. Argument

4. Multigenre Research Projects

This book is divided into two sections. Section 1, "Planning Decisions," takes you through the process we used-and you might consider-to plan a year of teaching. The section includes five chapters:

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section 2, "Teaching Essential Discourses," begins with an introduction that explains the general framework for planning a unit of study in a specific writing discourse. Then, in the four chapters that follow, we detail the decisions we made in four discourse studies: narrative, informational, argument, and multigenre. Our hope is that by reading about the decisions we made as we planned together, you will be inspired to reimagine the beautiful possibilities for your teaching.
- Introduction

This book is a brilliant work of architecture-the making of an English course. How do you shape the movement of the 180 days, balancing open space and structure, individuality and assessment, breadth and depth (not to mention managing the damn thing). Two of our country's most innovative teachers, Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher take on this challenge in a cross-country collaboration, exploring the art of the possible. This book-and its amazing video accompaniment-illustrates not so much the fixed course everyone should teach (even they don't totally agree on that), but how to think through the making, and the principles that should be its foundation.-Thomas Newkirk

Spending 180 days on the job and in the world with Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher is like apprenticing yourself to a year in the kitchen with two master chefs who speak honestly and passionately about the challenges we face and the choices we must make every day in our own classrooms. I learned something new on every page, verbally annotating just about every suggestion with a mental "Yes!" or "Try this!" At every turn, they acknowledge and address the constraints, especially of time, we all face in our classes-then show us how they manage to teach their students so much and so well despite those constraints.-Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher's Companion

"This book is everything. I mean this whole-heartedly and without exaggeration - this book is everything. It is everything I needed when I began teaching, and it is exactly what I need now to reflect on my practices, my curriculum, and my kids. The depth of knowledge and experience here, living alongside the breadth of thinking across the time and space of a school year, takes my breath away. Thank you, Penny and Kelly. May my children have teachers who have read and used this book."--Kate Roberts, author of A Novel Idea

Who among us hasn't wished to be a fly on the wall of Penny's and Kelly's classrooms? In 180 Days, we aren't just flies-we are invited into their brains, their plan books, and their friendship as they answer the question that plagues every teacher: how to do it all in one year? This book is not about how to find time where time doesn't exist. It's not about turning 180 days into 200 days so you can fit everything in. This book is about making decisions about what really matters enough and how to make the most of the time we are given with our students. It honors teachers as decision-makers and reminds us of the power of professional collaboration to change not only our students' learning but also our own professional lives.-Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell, coauthors of Writing With Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis

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180 Days represents the collaboration of two master teachers-Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle-over an entire school year: planning, teaching, and reflecting

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Chapter 7 from A Guide to the Writing Workshop

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Chapter 7 from A Guide to the Writing Workshop

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"Inside the Minilesson"

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Chapter 5: Provisioning a Writing Workshop

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Chapter 5: Provisioning a Writing Workshop

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I'm definitely going to be trying to implement the flow within a single lesson of minilesson->practice->group work as soon as possible. For trying out more small group work and conferencing, I think I might at first need some help with in-class logistics, "crowd control", help leading conferencing, etc. from support teachers (who I'm lucky enough to have in most of my class sections).

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I would like to look at using the intended learning goals to develop the teaching points for mini lessons. I would also like to try the analysing data protocol to create small groups.
Support: in providing the time for the team to work together on using the ILG's to consider possible teaching points.

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1. I would like to use formative date as a way to focus on the creation of mini lessons that are responsive to students needs.

2. I would love to have fellow teachers come in to observe and give formal / informal feedback on the creation and delivery of the mini lessons.

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1. Try to be more conscious of the process. Spend a little more time noting aims and techniques and brainstorming.
2. Mini-Lessons - Grouping my students according to need and targeting teaching to their needs.
3. Class lay-out to facilitate mini-lessons and conferencing.

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1. I would like to focus on using formative data to inform me about creating mini lessons for for students.  Focusing on skill and writing tool development.
2. I think the best way to get support is have teachers come and observe the mini lessons with some formal/informal feedback. Maybe the same year / subject team?

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1. I would like to try restructuring my lessons slightly to prioritize brief mini-lessons, followed by productive practice. I would also like to try more considerate, thoughtful, conferencing.

2. Working with my group during CPT to consider how these daily lesson plans can work within the unit plan (and how the unit plan may change slightly to prioritize this approach). Approach to conferencing doesn't really need outside support, but more of a personal "letting go" of the rest of the class for a minute.

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Using a Learning Progression in Small Group Instruction

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Using a Learning Progression in Small Group Instruction

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Using a Learning Progression to Support Self-Assessment and Writing about Themes in Literature: Small Group Work (3-5)

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Lucy Calkins and Colleagues at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project present Using a Learning Progression to Support Self-Assessment and Writing about Themes in Literature: Small Group (3-5)

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Year 8 Workshop Plan 2 - NIST, April 2023

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Year 9 Workshop Plan 2 - NIST, April 2023

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Year 8 Workshop Plan 1 - NIST, April 2023

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Year 7 Workshop Plan 2 - NIST, April 2023

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Year 7 Workshop Plan 1 - NIST, April 2023

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The Classroom Essentials Series

Writing conferences are a way to help both you and your students find joy in the writing process. And too, conferences can help you provide one-on-one instruction that covers a wide range of writing skills and strategies.

How can I get started with conferring or improve my conferences?
How can I fit conferences into my busy writing workshop schedule?
How can conferences help me meet the diverse needs of student writers?

Helping students become better writers is what writing conferences are all about.In A Teacher's Guide to Writing Conferences, Carl Anderson explains the underlying principles and reasons for conferring with students, and how to make writing conferences a part of your daily routine. With clear and accessible language, Carl guides you through the three main parts of a writing conference, and shows you the teaching moves and intentional language that can be used in each one. He helps you understand:
* how to get started with conferring, or improve your existing conferences
* how to use conferences to meet the diverse needs of your student writers
* how to fit conferences into your busy writing workshop schedule.
More than 25 videos bring the content to life, while Teacher Tips, Q&A's, and Recommended Reading lists provide everything you need to help you become a better writing teacher.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

Part One: What Is a Writing Conference?
My First Writing Conference Was a Disaster
Writing Conferences Happen in Writing Workshop
What Is a Writing Conference?
Why Confer?
Part Two: Start by Discovering What the Student is Doing as a Writer
Invite Students to Talk About Their Writing
What Will Students Talk About?
Five Scenarios That Happen After You Ask, "How's It Going?"
Try It Yourself: Studying Your Conferring
Part Three: Assess and Decide What to Teach
Recognizing Patterns Is the Key to Good Decision-Making
Writing Patterns and Teaching Points
Try It Yourself: Building Your Knowledge of Writing Patterns and Teaching Points
Part Four: Then Teach Powerfully
Move One: Give Feedback
Move Two: Deliver a Teaching Point
Move Three: Coach
Move Four: Link to Independent Work
Studying the Four Teaching Moves in a Transcript of a Conference
Try It Yourself: Improving Your Conference Teaching

Companion Resources

Reviews

"With the videos included in this book, learning does not stop on the last page of the book. The art of teaching is taking something and creating a wonderful lesson that brings the learning to life. This is what the videos do for the book."-Lesley Miller, Director of Title I and Literacy, Frankfort, IN

"Carl does an excellent job of showing all the possibilities when conferring with writers. His teaching point library is probably the highlight of this book for veteran teachers. Excellent!"-Jill Hatcher, Literacy Coach

"This would have been invaluable to me in my first years of teaching. Not just the text, but as a way that teachers can talk to students, in ways that move the learning forward."-Tia Frahm, Assistant Professor

"I struggle with writing conferences, and this book was filled with helpful problem solvers. The many strategies offered quick and useful tools to support my teaching and the young writers in my classroom."-- Tiffany Jewell, Montessori Teacher

Related PD Services

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A Teacher's Guide to Writing Conferences

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Writing conferences are a way to help both you and your students find joy in the writing process. And too, conferences can help you provide one-on-one

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NIST Y7-9 Content Session Building Skill Progressions 40 minutes Examples of Progressions Unpack ILGs for Analytical Writing Craft Examples How to use with students

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Analytical Writing Progression: Craft & Development

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Analytical Writing Progression: Craft & Development

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Analytical Writing Progression: Craft and Development

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Process for Assessment Informed Instruction

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Process for Assessment Informed Instruction

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Assessment-Informed Instruction & Thin Slicing Data Session

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Assessment-Informed Instruction & Thin Slicing Data Session (1)

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Year 9 Workshop Plan 1 - NIST, April 2023

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Check out this video to see Kate Roberts teach a writing small group using the inquiry method.

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Assessing Endings to Persuasive Essays in Order to Clarify Expectations and Inform Essay Revisions (5-8)