Living Life Twice

Teaching the craft of writing requires teachers to be explicit in their work with students. Explicit and mindful teaching occurs when teachers are clear about what it is they want children to learn and when  a meaningful, focused program of instruction is provided.  This means conference notes and conversations, as well as writing samples are integral to the process of knowing what to teach.  The instruction provided by the teacher benefits from being informed by such insight.  Learning to look below the surface features and errors in the writing piece creates an opportunity to see the potential hidden beneath. Possibilities beyond grammar, punctuation and sentence structure emerge. When consideration is given to focused learning, student writers receive opportunities to make sense of the learning by creating purposeful connections between lesson purposes, tasks, texts, and lesson reflections. If these aspects of our lesson align, we increase our ...

My new poetry book  'What The Poemster Found' an anthology of verse for young poetry lovers is now officially available for ordering through Amazon: Follow the link to order: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1504319524/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1… 'You are the jingle in my bells  The tick in my tock  The flash in my light  The spring in my time  The whirl in my wind  The tell in my tale  You are the ever in my lasting  The ginger in my bread  The life in my boat  It has to be said.' Alan j Wright 'While living in New York City, Alan Wright often visited a busy café serving a rich and hearty winter soup that warmed him on cold winter days. In his third anthology of poetry Wright compares the flavours of that delicious soup to the blending of a variety of poetic styles and subjects to create a pleasurable collection of poems to suit the tastes all ages. Wright's poems capture real-life experiences while exploring past ...

If you are still wondering about the efficacy of providing student writers with choice, these findings by Daniel Pink succinctly sum up the situation: ‘Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.’ (2009, p. 108). ‘Too often in schools, teachers own the work. We create and teach lessons, dole out assignments, and assess the results, leaving students feeling like worker bees, dutifully completing assigned tasks with little power or control. However, when we give choice, we both empower students and help them develop and take more responsibility for their own learning.’ Daniel Pink, 'How Schools Can Spend Time More Wisely ' (2009) Many Additional Benefits of Choice: Through choice, you can assist students self-differentiate their learning so work is more appropriately challenging. You can also combat student apathy, helping students connect with their strengths and interests and giving them more autonomy, power, and control over their work, ...

  If  we want our students to exhibit curiosity and wonder then like all things related to learning, we need to model those very same behaviours ourselves. If students appear desensitized to their immediate surroundings and seemingly locked in a drone like state that screen overdose brings, then we are charged with added responsibility to re-programme that essential sense of wonder. This can present an immense challenge- but it's not impossible. It is a waste of much needed energy blaming the state of things. This amounts to kid blaming. Negativity breeds more of the same. We can’t complain about disconnected readers and writers if we are not leading the way with our actions.  Every day, in every classroom there are moments worthy of celebration and delight. We just need to be looking for them. Teaching is a performance art as much as anything else and performing with a sense of wonder and amazement becomes part of the deal. Each time we celebrate our wonder and ...

Last week I had the privilege of talking to various groups of young writers as part of the Knox Network Literacy Festival. Their questions were thought provoking and most pertinent.  I have come to appreciate, each writer’s process is unique. Revealing that process enables the writer sharing aspects of their process (as well as those with whom they share) to better understand the influences on their writing. A young writer asked me, ‘When did you begin to be a poet?’ and while I talked about how the process of becoming a poet was something that grew across many years and a host of experiences and influences, there was perhaps one particular experience way back in my Grade 3 year that may well have been a catalyst for what has become a life source for my writing. I recall clearly how my teacher Mr Manzie, asked the members of our class to each write a poem about  Spring-time .  My words that day caught the attention of some of my classmates, who like...

It goes by several names. That brief few minutes at the end of the writing workshop. Sometimes it’s called ‘share time’. Some people refer to it as ‘share out’ or simply “share.” It’s that time at the conclusion of a lesson that all too often gets squeezed out, which is a tragedy, because it represents a critical stage in the lesson, -It’s the finale that’s provides closure to an effective lesson. It’s when the fat lady of writing sings. And the aria is in praise of the writing that has just taken place! Deny her time in the spotlight and you are diminishing the integrity of your writing program. We should never underestimate the intrinsic value of ‘sharing’ writing. It remains an incredibly valuable teaching and learning opportunity. It should be protected within the workshop structure, as one would protect anything of value. For the teacher, it provides an invaluable opportunity to provide feedback on elements of the lesson just concluded. Sometimes it’s a chance to c...