Jan
26
Oct
14
“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Oct
21
NaNoWriMo is the shortcut acronym for National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/
NaNoWriMo begins November 1 and proceeds through the month. (Time to etch it into your lesson plans)
The NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in one month.
At NaNoWriMo you can:
Write a novel in a month!
Track your progress.
Get pep talks and support.
Meet fellow writers online and in person.Psst! (and so can your students).
See this 2012 post by Katie Taylor for a great explanation of the whole process from a writer’s point of view.
This is such a great idea and a great PBL project for your students. There is even an app to make the whole process i-friendly.
Oct
12
“Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.” ~William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well
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Aug
13
Here is a Summarization Strategy for Reading and Writing called “The Incredible Shrinking Notes”
**
Students read a section of text either assignned by the teacher or self-selected.
Students write a summary of the reading selection on the large index card. Depending on the age and ability of the students, teachers may need to give guidance as to number of sentences, sentence structure, whether misspellings will be noted, etc…
Students are then given the medium sized card and have to take the information from the large card and condense it onto the medium-sized card.
Finally, students are given the small card and must take the information from the medium sized card and condense it further onto the small card.
Great way for students to get to the main point/idea, engage in CCCS of “close reading of text” and summarization, a skill needed across the curriculum.
**Click the Piktochart above to enlarge. Can be saved to use in your classroom.
Aug
6
BFF is an acronym for “Best Friend Forever.” These websites and tips are so good that they will become your technology BFFs!
Here is an engaging and easy-to-use tool to add voice to your current posters and illustrations.
Just upload a picture or photograph to Fotobabble, then record your voice and click Save.
Fotobabble creates a link and an embed code that you can copy and paste into your class webpage, blog, and social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.
Kindly click on this link to see a sample I created called Writing: Providing Evidence of Reading Responses: http://www.fotobabble.com/m/Ym9DdkZXTElVTUE9
Fotobabble is a software company that provides free photo- and audio-powered social marketing solutions for businesses, brands and nonprofits. Fotobabble’s integrated application suites help organizations attract and engage audiences across web, mobile and social networks.
Interactive images can be created online, no need to download any specialized software.
Apr
10
Found myself stranded last night coming home from Portales b/c of storms. Catching up on email, I read a notice about a new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure by Larry Smith.Based loosely on the literary legend of Hemingway, challenged to write a story in six words, supposedly composed “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Smith gives this challenge a non-fiction twist, inviting people to tell their life story in six words.
What would you write? What’s your six-word-life-summary?
Here are my attempts–Send me yours!
Smiled, laughed, surfed, copied, pasted, uploaded
Labeled ADD, ADHD, MEd, TODO, OLD
Smiled, laughed, twirled in flip flops
Deciding whether to answer the phone
Waited for pendulum to swing back
Short Attention Span Meets Its Match
How about giving your students your best 6-Word Advice?
“Whatever” is not a great answer.
The Key to possibilities: just begin
Don’t Try: Forge. Don’t Wait: Act.
Fail Here, Fail Big, Begin Again
Get Plan B, For Technology and Life
Invite your students to join you. Then, up the ante: tell them they must include 1-2 of your latest unit vocabulary words.
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