I would like to share the poetry unit that a my teaching colleague and I designed for a first grade class.  Our goals were that it would be accessible, engaging, and provide a spark of interest and motivation in order to dig deeper into poetry.  We included bubbles and a recording of the sounds of... Continue Reading →

  I am back in the classroom working with a colleague to teach a week long poetry unit to the first grade class at the school where I teach.  Our plan is to provide many mentor poems that show poetic language, repetition, sound words, and revision including line breaks and varied fonts.  We did an... Continue Reading →

Georgia Heard includes guidelines for peer conferences in her book Awakening the Heart (Heard 1999). Her suggestions include having your partner read your poem back to you as you ask yourself reflective questions (Heard, 1999. p. 119).  I recently had an opportunity for peer revision in my writing instruction class. We were asked to engage... Continue Reading →

This week I have been given an honorable and valuable task worthy of doing...to celebrate the writing of a colleague.  I am a well intentioned, hard-working person who is embarrassed and ashamed that I will not make this task happen in the time I have been given.  This is a reflection of me and not... Continue Reading →

Below I have described two little gems that would be an asset to anyone who plans to share poetry with young children: Text #1: The Tree That Time Built selected by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Winston The Tree That Time Built is a collection of poems inspired by the discoveries of scientists from the... Continue Reading →

  My urge to identify/clarify/justify my understanding of my spirituality/religion/values in this world has been bubbling to the surface more and more these days.  My stepmother/mother/sister/friend has always been a guide for me in this way.  I have such disdain for so many that use religion as a platform for spewing hatred and narrow-minded views... Continue Reading →

I remember being a prolific poet as an adolescent. I have journals upon journals packed away from these days.  I was always the victim tormented by true devastations like a boy dumping me.  My work was clever but immature with forced rhymes.  Then it just stopped.  I often wonder how and why this happened and... Continue Reading →

In an effort to synthesize and summarize my recent learning about possible best practices in a Writing Workshop learning model, a colleague of mine and I compiled and created a unit of lesson plans that could be used in early elementary grades.  We included strategies, materials, and the rationale behind them.  Please follow the link... Continue Reading →

What a mess that was! I was so eager and naive on that day fourteen years ago and I had no idea how those first twenty minutes would go! The first day of kindergarten has an energy you can almost taste.  I was dressed in my finest linen skirt and tailored shirt in a desperate... Continue Reading →

Title: Writing About Artifacts or Classroom Family Tree Summary: Students in first or second grades will create fiction narratives using treasured objects. Materials: Mentor Texts, 4-8 treasured objects, original writing excerpts about memories inspired by objects. Mentor Texts/Citations: Fox, Mem. Wilfred Gordon Mcdonald Partridge. Marco Book Company, 2009. Bunting, Eve, and Ted Rand. The Memory... Continue Reading →