Donald Graves, in A Fresh Look at Writing, suggests a deceptively easy pen-and-paper method to gauge one’s familiarity with students. After creating a three-column table for a given class, begin writing students’ names in the left-hand column and including information about interests (especially academic) and not-quite-obvious personality traits in the middle. The third column is …
Teaching writing means reading things like this The crowd looks like a box of crayons with their colorful shirts on to support their favorite school. The most magnificent and wonderful part of day is the night that takes us within. It gives you your dreams and time to think about the day that trailed behind …
Many of my students expose their emotional buttons and switches freely and openly. Within a few minutes of meeting some of them, I can tell what their sensitivities are. “How many administrative referrals did you get last year?” I ask some of them, with a smile that I hope says, “I’m not trying to size …
How does one keep a journal? It’s something I’ve done for so long that I no longer even think about it. And yet when you’re starting out, doing it on command—and for a grade, no less—then it might seem a little intimidating. “Three hundred words, three times a week,” I said. “About anything.” “Anything?” the …