[Mentor Text Monday] A Sunday Evening Sentence Search

It’s Sunday evening. I want to post a mentor text, but my brain, she be empty. I tumble through my thoughts, flip through my mental card catalogue, scroll through my Twitter feed, and… nothing. And then I remember–books! I read books, own books, and display said books in an easy-access shelving unit otherwise known as…

[Mentor Text Monday] Word Envy

Those of you that follow me on Facebook may have seen a series of posts straight from my Kindle this weekend.  I started reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness and have incredible word envy. Here are some excerpts that I love love loved.   Loved, I tells ya. Re: the Noise Re: …

[Lesson Ideas] Magically Delicious

Here is a presentation I made to help me introduce the concept of Magic Realism at Young Writers Camp.  Feel free to use it, and all images and links should either go directly to the source, or have enough information to identify the source. Please also give appropriate credit to sources if you use this–it’s…

[Friday Free-Day] Yo! Snaps

I’m puttering around this post trying to figure out how to describe what became, this Spring, a phenomenon in my classroom. It’s quite near indescribable, but it’s also amazing and worth sharing. Where to begin…? On a Tuesday I “threw a snap” to one of my students. It’s something I used to do with my…

[Mentor Text Monday] Maniac Magee

Briefly, I define mentor texts as a piece of a writing used as a model.  There is more to it, but let’s start there.  Eventually, I’ll post a page with more of a definition or guide. I’m not sure exactly how Mentor Text Mondays will go, but you can bet on your teaching patootie, that…

[Student Work] Late

From a student journal today.  We’ve been writing 15 minutes a day all year.   This makes my heart smile. Late start. Barely made it. Happy I’m not late. The guy in the taco shop took forever, Singing his songs and drinking coffee. Irritated already So please Leave me alone Stomachache Foot cramps Head ache.                                                          …

[Teaching Writing] Found Faces

Many surprising things happened today.  I woke up early, but not too early (!!!). I actually GOT up (!!!).  I took Stella the Dog for a walk after I got up (!!!).  And, I saw and took photos of fun things on my walk, AND I’ve already turned them into a writing prompt for today (!!!). Oh, and I…

[Mentor Texts] Leading up to Memoirs

Today we started to write memoirs. While I’m glad to share the steps leading up to these very-first-inkling drafts, I’d rather just show y’all what they came up with. Here is the mentor text we used.  It’s from Knots in My Yo-yo String by Jerry Spinelli.  We are using his memoirs as our mentor text…