(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.) Three weeks in and my sixth graders are already writing up a storm. We’ve done a short story […]
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Perspectives On The Writing We Did
We ran out of time in the school year to do the kind of thorough reflection that my students really should do at the end of the year in my ELA class. Some got to the digital writing portfolio project and did a fine job, while others were finishing up another project, and the clock […]
#4TDW Blog Carnival: Why (Digital) Comics Matter
(This post is for a blog carnival about digital writing, as part of the Virtual Conference on Digital Writing) A few years ago, I had one of those “aha” moments that forever changed my perception of young readers and writers. I had entered the local comic book store with my son, with the intention of […]
Phew … The First Week Sets the Stage
This is the first year that I can remember that we started school on a Monday and went five days to Friday. Normally, we come mid-week for a few days and then hit the ground running the next week. Instead, we had five full days and now a three-day weekend before coming back to a […]
Our Class Picture (Comic Version)
Day One has come and gone, and we dove right into technology yesterday, with identity/avatar creation via Bitstrips for Schools. As always, my sixth graders were highly engaged, helping each other with questions and answers, and learning quite a bit about how we appropriately use our laptops and how we might think about comics as […]
Don’t You Know, We’re Talkin’ About Our Aspirations
One of my all-time favorite start-of-the-year activities is our Dream Scene Project, in which students work on a project of their aspirations for sometime in the future. Over the years, this project has morphed from a paper art project, to a digital storytelling project, to the current form of a webcomic project. The Dream Scene […]
Keynote Collaboration with Bonnie and Troy at NYSCATE
Anytime I get a chance to collaborate with my National Writing Project friends Troy Hicks and Bonnie Kaplan, I am game. So, yesterday, I joined Bonnie and Troy for a keynote presentation at the New York State Association for Computers and Technology event. But since I could not take more time off school, we used […]
More Consideration of Video as Text
I have been curious about ways I can bring in the concept of “video as text” to my students other than “here’s the video” of the story we just read. That seems too passive, and with our new curriculum standards requiring our students to be critical consumers of media (across many platforms), I want to […]
How We Used Technology for Writing This Year
Today is our last day of school of the year. Phew. As I often do, I was thinking a bit about the various kinds of technology that my sixth graders used this year to complement, enhance and inform their writing. Here’s a list of some of the things they did, although I may forget a […]
Using Digital Stories to Inspire Reluctant Writers
We’re only a few weeks into the year, but a few of my students are already on the radar. You are probably in the same situation — noticing and making notes of students who will be needing a little more support and attention as writers and readers. We’re still finishing up our digital story project, […]