Do your students get excited about writing? I’m thinking that, generally, the answer is not a resounding YES! And who would blame them, with all the emphasis on that scripted writing for state tests. While teaching the formulaic essay is unavoidable, hopefully, we are allowing our kids practice with many types of writing. Journal entries, scripts/written conversations, business, friendly, and thank-you letters, and all types of poems are great options…
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Middle School Writing
Using Mentor Sentences to Improve Student Writing
We all want to find ways to improve our students’ writing, but sometimes it’s hard to know just where to begin. When we get our eyes on that first batch of assignments, we see weaknesses everywhere! Fortunately, we don’t have to go back to square one and re-teach all the basics in order to see writing growth. Have you tried using mentor sentences in your instruction? These models, excerpted…
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10 Ideas to Make Teaching RESEARCH Easier
I enjoy diving into research units with my students because they get to learn new things, and I do, too! But teaching research skills is a gigantic task! And one thing’s for certain: I’ll have to break the research process into steps to keep my middle school students from feeling overwhelmed. I want them to have that “I’ve got this” attitude from the moment I introduce the project. Of…
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