Just sat in on a few minutes on our own Emily Badillo and Jen Rugani training teachers to use our new reading curriculum. They were discussing the three types of prompts we use and how and why we balance them, and shared this slide with examples from our unit on Brown Girl Dreaming. The first prompt…
I had a great meeting yesterday with ace curriculum developer Jen Rugani to discuss lesson plans she’s been developing for our unit on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In the course of the meeting, we developed a new application for one of our favorite developmental writing exercises. The exercise is called Because, But,…
Yesterday I wrote about three types of writing—how they are all important but possibly out of balance, and how the third type of writing, Developmental Writing, is critically important and often sorely overlooked. Today I want to say a bit more about Developmental Writing and the role of revision. First I want to point out that…
This is the first of several posts I hope to write about writing—why it is important and how despite our best intentions, I think we can teach and practice it better. Some context: I’ve visited a series of better-than-average and mostly-very-good schools recently—perhaps ten in at least three states—and afterwards I find myself thinking most of all…