Mastering Writing Flexibility for High School English
A teacher down the hall stopped me yesterday to ask a simple question. She wanted to know how to get her ninth graders to stop treating a quick in-class response the same way they treat a formal research paper. The reality is that we often focus on long-form writing... read more
High School English Lesson on Writing for Purpose and Audience
When you ask a high school student to revise an essay, the vast majority reach for their red pens with the intent of fixing commas and spelling errors. They treat revision like proofreading, completely missing the forest for the trees. In our English 11 classrooms,... read more
High school English lesson on collaborative writing and iteration
Many high school students view digital writing as a task that ends the moment they save a document. Teachers can shift this perspective by introducing strategies that turn solitary drafts into dynamic, collaborative projects, ensuring that students treat writing as an... read more
Supporting Ideas with Textual Evidence for High School English
When you ask a ninth grader to explain a character’s motivation, you often get a summary of the plot instead of an argument. They tell you what happened, but they struggle to show you where they found that information in the text. Students want to jump to... read more