Group items tagged

It is all about balance.  Some students need more help with understanding how to write.  Others need less.  I would not want writing to be reduced to a formula but we need to have ways to support student in their writing journey.  It is hard to write well if you believe you cannot write because you lack success.  The focus needs to be on what students need in the format that they need.

So now the proverbial pendulum is threatening to swing back, back to the basics of writing instruction. Is there a way we can learn from the mistakes of our past over-reactions and consider the possibility that both the technical and creative aspects of writing can (and should) be taught? And that the qualities and skills involved in both can (and should) be taught explicitly and through immersion in the best examples of each genre.

One strategy to use with ELLs is to provide them with sentence starters, similar to the ones the teachers at New Dorp are now using. The SIOP Model, a way to create lesson plans that encompasses strategies that support ELLs, benefits not only them but all students as well.

This is such a crucial step.  My own failed attempts at creating a classroom of bloggers can be traced back to this missing step. The paper idea is worth exploring.

It would be worth offering some of Common Sense Media's lessons here: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum

There's an untaught rhetoric here.