Mentor Texts

What have you found out about yourself in terms of reading like a writer?  Are there any texts that you have found to be fabulous mentor texts?  If so what are they and how have you used them with your students?

Katie talks about "Office Work" in chapter 5.  The writer's life is one that is always envisioning the possibilities or crafting that letter to the editor as they are driving to work.  What does your office work look like?  What are some of the routines and ways that you write in your life that you could share with your students?  No two writers have the same habits or "work".

In Chapter 6 Katie gets more in depth with the inquiry of "reading like a writer."  What is your current thinking on this?  Are you noticing yourself reading differently?

You can respond to one or both of these questions or not.  What do you want to write about?  The choice is yours.  The "invitations" there if you need them.

Wondrous Words

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

It has been a long time, but here we are back at the ole glowing screen sharing our thoughts, ideas, questions and anything else here with each other. I thought about putting this all on the NING, but decided that we already have such an amazing treasure trove of writing here and that keeping it going seems the best idea. We welcome all you who are new to this forum. Stick with it and you will be amazed at it's power!!


For this blog I am going to ask that you choose a specific quote from Wondrous Words, post that quote in quotation marks (of course) and write "to" that quote. What does this make you think about? Wonder about? Why does this particular quote speak to you, bother you, keep you thinking?

Observations

Please write a quick summary of who you visited and what you saw or a copy of the thank you note you sent to the teacher you visited.

Final Reflections

Before you write this please take the time to read through all of the blogs written by you and your classmates. This is an opportunity to think about how your thinking has changed in terms of teaching and how your thinking impacts what you do in the classroom. What do you think that you didn't think before? What are you more aware of in your teaching when working with struggling students All of your students? How does content play into this thinking?

These are just a few questions to get you started in your reflection. You do not need to answer every question. You just need to reflect on your practices and define them in writing. We will also be reading these at our last class. Remember, the sky is the limit. You can write this ANY way that makes sense to you!! (poetry, songs, drama, letters etc.) Let me know if you have any questions!

Choice Words

Choose a line from our book, Choice Words and respond to it here!!

Free Choice

Take some time to write and reflect on anything you are thinking about in the area of literacy. Perhaps we can even get a conversation going on line here as you might decide to respond to what someone else wrote as well. I am curious as to what you are thinking about and why!