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STAAR Writing Strategies for all Grade Levels by From Gretchen Bernabei

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STAAR Writing Strategies for all Grade Levels by From Gretchen Bernabei

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My Powerpoint for Revision

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Great slides that push your idea of what storytelling can be and lead to revision.

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Post with 20685 votes and 607766 views. Tagged with The More You Know, , , , ; Shared by PersonalPetPenguin. How to write a great story

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Paula Borque takes great notes.

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Creating a Class of Readers, Penny Kittle Style

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Creating a Class of Readers, Penny Kittle Style

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I interviewed Penny on how to create a class of readers.

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Penny Kittle Tells You What You Need to Do to Create Lifelong Readers

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A powerful way to begin is to start with a snapshot.

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Barry Lane writes about "His Favorite Day"

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Alternative ending to Mary Poppins which is Education Reform as we know it.

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This video is about Let's Go Give a Test

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Karaoke for teachers.

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This is "Tammy 2" by stoneskyfilms on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Superficial unrealistic rigor is atrocious

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by Paul Hankins and Barry Lane. From Barry Lane's World Famous Literacy Cabaret www.literacycabaret.com or www.barrylane.com

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Pay close attention. What you do changes lives.

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includes a British accent...

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Vigor not rigor-schools should be dream driven, not data driven | Barry Lane | TEDxCCSU

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Barry Lane's first TED talk tells the orgins of the word Rigor and what it has done to our schools.

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Stream songs and get more handouts here.

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teaching writing with passion, purpose and possibiity

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Hello Dewey my old friend...

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This is "We Found Defiance" by stoneskyfilms on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Better than the ones I heard in high school.

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Ok. Songs have been written to this tune for me since high school, but these two have made a fine go of summarizing my workshop in the text as well and the 2 part harmony's make it postable.

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Shorter Video version of the explode a moment lesson.

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Explode a Moment and Spark imagination in Writingw

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More info at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykziiHpyuo&feature=related Barry Lane shows 2 writing lessons that improve student performance on writing tests and improve writing.

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My most popular video for teaching Explode a Moment.

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From Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook

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Sara and my school year kicks off for earnest tomorrow with a visit to McKinley Elementary School in Elyria Ohio.

This is on the heels of our visit to Bellingham Washington - just North of Seattle - and our presenting at and attending of Western Washington University and Pomelo Books amazing Poetry Camp. Shout out to Janet Wong, Sylvia Vardell, Nancy Johnson and Sylvia Tag!

To celebrate a new season - Sara and I have made an anchor chart of useful poetry editing tips - a sort of checklist that may be downloaded. The full-sized version is at our website as a link off of our Poems for Your Classroom page or by clicking underneath the image below. It's ready to print on A3 paper. Feel free to download, share and print it off!

See you in the classroom!

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on by .

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Here we go again! - Outspoken Literacy Consultants

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Sara and my school year kicks off for earnest tomorrow with a visit to McKinley Elementary School in Elyria Ohio. This is on the heels of our visit to Bellingham Washington - just North of Seattle - and our presenting at and attending of Western Washington University and Pomelo Books amazing Poetry Camp.

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Interview with Stephen King as a Teacher

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Interview with Stephen King as a Teacher

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Great interview where King tells his high school teaching philosophy.

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Looking back on his days in front of a high school classroom, the acclaimed writer shares his views on grammar and explains why discovering great literature is like losing one's virginity.

Mike Segar/Reuters

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft has been a fixture in my English classroom for years, but it wasn't until this summer, when I began teaching in a residential drug and alcohol rehab, that I discovered the full measure of its worth. For weeks, I struggled to engage my detoxing, frustrated, and reluctant teenage students. I trotted out all my best lessons and performed all my best tricks, but save for one rousing read-aloud of Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart," I failed to engage their attention or imagination.

Until the day I handed out copies of On Writing. Stephen King's memoir of the craft is more than an inventory of the writer's toolbox or a voyeuristic peek into his prolific and successful writing life. King recounts his years as a high school English teacher, his own recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, and his love for his students ("even the Beavis and Butt-Head types"). Most importantly, he captivates the reader with his honest account of the challenges he's faced, and promises redemption to anyone willing to come to the blank page with a sense of purpose.

I asked King to expound on the parts of On Writing I love most: the nuts and bolts of teaching, the geekiest details of grammar, and his ideas about how to encourage a love of language in all of our students.

Jessica Lahey: You write that you taught grammar "successfully." How did you define "success" when you were teaching?

Stephen King: Success is keeping the students' attention to start with, and then getting them to see that most of the rules are fairly simple. I always started by telling them not to be too concerned with stuff like weird verbs (swim, swum, swam) and just remember to make subject and verb agree. It's like we say in AA-KISS. Keep it simple, stupid.

Lahey: When people ask me to name my favorite books, I have to ask them to narrow their request: to read or to teach? You provide a fantastic list of books to read at the end of On Writing, but what were your favorite books to teach, and why?

King: When it comes to literature, the best luck I ever had with high school students was teaching James Dickey's long poem "Falling." It's about a stewardess who's sucked out of a plane. They see at once that it's an extended metaphor for life itself, from the cradle to the grave, and they like the rich language. I had good success with The Lord of the Flies and short stories like "Big Blonde" and "The Lottery." (They argued the shit out of that one-I'm smiling just thinking about it.) No one puts a grammar book on their list of riveting reads, but The Elements of Style is still a good handbook. The kids accept it.
I used to tell them that if you could put together a model car or assemble a piece of furniture from directions, you could write a sentence.
Lahey: You write, "One either absorbs the grammatical principles of one's native language in conversation and in reading or one does not." If this is true, why teach grammar in school at all? Why bother to name the parts?

King: When we name the parts, we take away the mystery and turn writing into a problem that can be solved. I used to tell them that if you could put together a model car or assemble a piece of furniture from directions, you could write a sentence. Reading is the key, though. A kid who grows up hearing "It don't matter to me" can only learn doesn't if he/she reads it over and over again.

Lahey: While I love teaching grammar, I am conflicted on the utility of sentence diagramming. Did you teach diagramming, and if so, why?

King: I did teach it, always beginning by saying, "This is for fun, like solving a crossword puzzle or a Rubik's Cube." I told them to approach it as a game. I gave them sentences to diagram as homework but promised I would not test on it, and I never did. Do you really teach diagramming? Good for you! I didn't think anyone did anymore.

Lahey: In the introduction to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, E.B. White recounts William Strunk's instruction to "omit needless words." While your books are voluminous, your writing remains concise. How do you decide which words are unnecessary and which words are required for the telling?

King: It's what you hear in your head, but it's never right the first time. So you have to rewrite it and revise it. My rule of thumb is that a short story of 3,000 words should be rewritten down to 2,500. It's not always true, but mostly it is. You need to take out the stuff that's just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler!

Lahey: Great writing often resides in the sweet spot between grammatical mastery and the careful bending of rules. How do you know when students are ready to start bending? When should a teacher put away his red pen and let those modifiers dangle?

King: I think you have to make sure they know what they're doing with those danglers, those fragmentary and run-on sentences, those sudden digressions. If you can get a satisfactory answer to "Why did you write it this way?" they're fine. And-come on, Teach-you know when it's on purpose, don't you? Fess up to your Uncle Stevie!

Lahey: Oxford comma: yea or nay?

King: It can go either way. For instance, I like "Jane bought eggs, milk, bread, and a candy bar for her brother." But I also like "Jane raced home and slammed the door," because I want to feel that whole thing as a single breath.

Lahey: You extol the benefits of writing first drafts with the door closed, but students are often so focused on giving teachers what they want and afraid of making mistakes that they become paralyzed. How can teachers encourage kids to close the door and write without fear?

King: In a class situation, this is very, very hard. That fearlessness always comes when a kid is writing for himself, and almost never when doing directed writing for the grade (unless you get one of those rare fearless kids who's totally confident). The best thing-maybe the only thing-is to tell the student that telling the truth is the most important thing, much more important than the grammar. I would say, "The truth is always eloquent." To which they would respond, "Mr. King, what does eloquent mean?"
You have to make sure they know what they're doing ... If you can get a satisfactory answer to "Why did you write it this way?" they're fine.
Lahey: Of course, once they have something down on paper, they are going to have to open the door and invite the world to read what they have written. How did you cope with the editing process early in your writing career, and how did you teach your students to handle feedback?

King: A lot of them didn't care; they were just hacking out assignments. For those that are sensitive and insecure, you have to combine gentleness with firmness. It's a tightrope, particularly with teenagers. Did I have students actually bust out crying? I did. I'd say, "This is just a step to get you to the next step."

Lahey: You warn writers not to "come lightly to the blank page." How can teachers encourage kids to come the blank page with both gravity and enthusiasm?

King: It went best for me when I could communicate my own enthusiasm. I can remember teaching Dracula to sophomores and practically screaming, "Look at all the different voices in this book! Stoker's a ventriloquist! I love that!" I don't have much use for teachers who "perform," like they're onstage, but kids respond to enthusiasm. You can't command a kid to have fun, but you can make the classroom a place that feels safe, where interesting things happen. I wanted every 50-minute class to feel like half an hour.

Lahey: You have called informal essays "silly and unsubstantial things," not at all useful for teaching good writing. What kinds of essay assignments are useful?

King: I tried to give assignments that would teach kids to be specific. I used to repeat "See, then say" half a dozen times a day. So I would often ask them to describe operations that they take for granted. Ask a girl to write a paragraph on how she braids her sister's hair. Ask a boy to explain a sports rule. These are just basic starting points, where students learn to write on paper what they might tell a friend. It keeps it concrete. If you ask a kid to write on "My Favorite Movie," you're opening the door to subjectivity, and hence to a flood of clichés.

Lahey: I do a lot of reading out loud in my classroom because I think it's the best way to ease students into challenging language and rhetoric. Do you have any favorite read-alouds, either from your classroom, or from reading to your own kids?

Lahey: By extension, how can writing teachers help students recognize which words are required in their own writing?

King: Always ask the student writer, "What do you want to say?" Every sentence that answers that question is part of the essay or story. Every sentence that does not needs to go. I don't think it's the words per se, it's the sentences. I used to give them a choice, sometimes: either write 400 words on "My Mother is Horrible" or "My Mother is Wonderful." Make every sentence about your choice. That means leaving your dad and your snotty little brother out of it.

Jessica Lahey: In On Writing, you identified some phrases that should be excised from every writer's toolbox: "At this point in time" and "at the end of the day." Any new irksome phrases you'd be willing to share? (Mine's "on accident.")

King: "Some people say," or "Many believe," or "The consensus is." That kind of lazy attribution makes me want to kick something. Also, IMHO, YOLO, and LOL.
Reading good fiction is like making the jump from masturbation to sex.
Lahey: You write that "it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer." If so, how should writing teachers proceed when it comes to our least talented students?

King: Ask yourself what they need to get on in life, the bare minimum (like filling in a job application), and concentrate on that. Sometimes it can be as simple as writing-as a class exercise-instructions on how to get from Point A in town to Point B. They tie themselves in knots, at least to start with. It can be pretty hilarious. My kids used to end up shouting at each other, "No, no, you go left at the water tower!" Stuff like that.

King: I used to read my lit kids "August Heat," by W.F. Harvey. By the time I reached the last line-"The heat is enough to drive a man mad"-you could hear a pin drop. Wilfred Owen was also a hit: "Dulce Et Decorum Est." My kids wanted comic books when they were small. Later it was The Hobbit, and from The Hobbit to Lord of the Rings. On long trips, we all listened to audio books. A good reader digging into a good book is wonderful. Musical.
The best thing-maybe the only thing-is to tell the student that telling the truth is the most important thing, much more important than the grammar.
Lahey: English teachers tend to fall into one of two camps when it comes to literacy: Those who believe we should let students read anything they want so they will be more likely to engage with books, and those who believe teachers should push kids to read more challenging texts in order to expose them to new vocabulary, genres, and ideas. Where would you pitch your tent?

King: You don't want to leave them in despair, which is why it's such a horrible idea to try teaching Moby-Dick or Dubliners to high school juniors. Even the bright ones lose heart. But it's good to make them reach a little. They've got to see there are brighter literary worlds than Twilight. Reading good fiction is like making the jump from masturbation to sex.

Lahey: You paint a pretty bleak picture of teachers as professional writers. Teaching is, after all, a "consumptive profession," as a friend of mine puts it, and it can be a real challenge to find the juice for our own creative endeavors after a day at school. Do you still feel that teaching full time while pursuing the writing life is a doomed proposition?

King: Many writers have to teach in order to put bread on the table. But I have no doubt teaching sucks away the creative juices and slows production. "Doomed proposition" is too strong, but it's hard, Jessica. Even when you have the time, it's hard to find the old N-R-G.

Lahey: If your writing had not panned out, do you think you would have continued teaching?

King: Yes, but I would have gotten a degree in elementary ed. I was discussing that with my wife just before I broke through with Carrie. Here's the flat, sad truth: By the time they get to high school, a lot of these kids have already closed their minds to what we love. I wanted to get to them while they were still wide open. Teenagers are wonderful, beautiful freethinkers at the best of times. At the worst, it's like beating your fists on a brick wall. Also, they're so preoccupied with their hormones it's often hard to get their attention.

Lahey: Do you think great teachers are born or do you think they can be trained?

King: Good teachers can be trained, if they really want to learn (some are pretty lazy). Great teachers, like Socrates, are born.

Lahey: You refer to writing as a craft rather than an art. What about teaching? Craft, or art?

King: It's both. The best teachers are artists.

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Looking back on his days in front of a high school classroom, the acclaimed writer shares his views on grammar and explains why discovering great literature is like losing one's virginity.

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4 Qualities that mack the best teachers.

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4 Qualities that mack the best teachers.

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This video is about The 4 Things That Make Great Teachers

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Silly contest but a great place to start talking about what makes language surprising and powerful.

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We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their favorite lines from literature. Here are some of their most beautiful replies.

2. "In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars."

-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Suggested by Jasmin B., via Facebook
3. "She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

-J. D. Salinger, "A Girl I Knew"
Suggested by mollyp49cf70741
4. "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart; I am, I am, I am."

-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Suggested by Brooke K., via Facebook
14. "As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) Anything can happen to anyone. and b) It is best to be prepared."

-Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
Suggested by Alyssa P., via Facebook
15. "If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me."

-W. H. Auden, "The More Loving One"
Suggested by Blake M., via Facebook
16. "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Suggested by Missy W., via Facebook
18. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Suggested by Emily F., via Facebook
19. "America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing."

-Allen Ginsburg, "America"
Suggested by Jimmy C., via Facebook
20. "It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories."

-W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Suggested by fireworkshurricanes
22. "At the still point, there the dance is."

-T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

23. "Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."

-Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
Suggested by Sam H., via Facebook
24. "In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart."

-Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank
Suggested by claires10
26. "The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order."

-Toni Morrison, Beloved
Suggested by lisah4b5176fb6
27. "How wild it was, to let it be."

-Cheryl Strayed, Wild
Suggested by Natalie P., via Facebook
28. "Do I dare / Disturb the universe?"

-T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Suggested by Kati A., via Facebook
30. "She was lost in her longing to understand."

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Suggested by melibellel
31. "She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."

-Kate Chopin, "The Awakening"
Suggested by Madeline M., via Facebook
32. "We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered."

-Tom Stoppard, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead

37. "Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet."

-L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Suggested by Stacy W., via Facebook
38. "I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark."

-Raymond Carver, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"
Suggested by Savey S., via Facebook
39. "I would always rather be happy than dignified."

-Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre
Suggested by Chelsea Z., via Facebook
41. "I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"

-W. B. Yeats, "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"

42. "It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes."

-Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Suggested by uncnicole
43. "For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly."

-Langston Hughes, The Big Sea
Suggested by TonyaPenn
45. "I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

-Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Suggested by Maria K., via Facebook
46. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

47. "Journeys end in lovers meeting."

-William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Did your favorite line from literature make the list? Tell us about it in the comments below! And if you'd like to be featured similar BuzzFeed posts, be sure to follow the BuzzFeed Community on Facebook and Twitter.

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51 Of The Most Beautiful Sentences In Literature

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2. "In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars." -Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Suggested by Jasmin B., via Facebook 3. "She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

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Article of the Week Links from Kelly Gallagher's site

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Article of the Week Links from Kelly Gallagher's site

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I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help students become better readers and writers.

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the iPad App

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from Sanford Lyne's book Poetry From the Inside Out

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This poem from Ted Kooser teaches close observation.

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Example of a High school student's recipe poem.

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Senior Marlene Martinez remembers the "Wacky We-Search" poem Flapper Fondue she did in her American Studies course. If she had been given a standard quiz or typical report would she be so passionate. The idea is in the book 51 Wacky We-search Reports by Barry Lane.

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Powerful lesson for creating a question culture

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Information writing with a comic twist. Great assignments for summary.

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Chart to understand expository writing.

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Unpublished Appendix to But How Do You Teach Writing

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Unpublished Appendix to But How Do You Teach Writing