- Make writing FUN

- Writing is THINKING
- Reading and Writing go hand and hand together, work as a team
- Use MENTOR TEXTS, many different things can be mentor texts: picture books,
articles, menus, signs, comics, poems, chapter books…
- There is no correct formula for how long a paragraph is or how many should be written
- I will use texts that I love and see as useful
- Use writing communities
- Have a large and variety-filled classroom library
- Share writing in class to increase the confidence of students
- Teach cursive
- Use Kagan strategies (round robin, pair up share up…)
- Do different things in the classroom every year, mix it up
- Spotlight kids
- Writing is good for the soul
- Keep students motivated in their writing by giving them real authentic audiences
- Narrative writing needs to be prioritized, explore emotions in their writing
- Publish student work around the classroom
- Have students work on something meaningful, petitions: sets them up for everyday
writing
- Teach with engaging texts and teach with age-appropriate texts
- Use lots of movement in the classroom
- Do a book tasting
- Teach how to take notes
- Do role-playing activities when teaching argumentative writing
- Do private journals
- Use music in the classroom
- Use inventive spelling
- Sentence construction: combining and de-combining and recombining
- Effectiveness > correctness
- Teach planning strategies: brainstorming, outlining, mind map, freewriting, mind map,
storyboard
- Use the phrase “Naked sentences” (sentences without punctuation)
- I will own up to my mistakes
- Find ways to answer kids' questions by making them proud, not embarrassed
- Give revising goals
- Give verbal feedback
- Do read aloud
- Make measurable criteria
- Have clear, meaningful, and authentic goals
- Teach poetry
- Write about music
- Allow students to express themselves
- Do free writings
- Create classroom poems
- Connect lesson plans to the standards
- Publish student work to give students a sense of pride and ownership of their work
- Do gallery walks during bathroom breaks to see how far students have come or how far
they will be in the future