https://amandawritenow.com/rethinking-conferencing-with-equity-in-mind/

We know conferring is a vital component of promoting equity in our classroom because doing so provides students with opportunities to advocate for themselves, voice their needs, and get support from the teacher. We know conferencing is important.

But, how do we overcome all the problematic issues we as teachers face when trying to conference with our students? What about the challenges of conferencing that everyday teachers face? What is a teacher to do when it just doesn’t seem to work the way all the workshop gurus say it will? And most important of all…how can we use conferencing practices successfully, to promote equity in our classrooms? This episode outlines a five-step process for rethinking conferencing with equity in mind!

In this episode I examine reading workshop through an equity lens. I discuss three problematic aspects of reading workshop and propose solutions to these problems. Check out the full blog post here: https://amandawritenow.com/rethinking-reading-workshop-with-equity-in-mind/

This is part one in a six part series outlining exactly how I’m rethinking my workshop classroom with an equity lens. For part one I focus on rethinking writing workshop with an equity lens. I discuss three problematic aspects of writing workshop and possible solutions for these problems.

I’ve learned and changed tremendously since the events of 2020-2021, you might even call what’s happened an identity crisis…I want to share this story here to make sense of everything for myself but also because I know there are many teachers out there that can relate.

https://amandawritenow.com/the-story-of-a-teacher-authors-identity-crisis/

This summer I'm hosting the first ever English Teacher Summer Reading Series! This event is taking place June 4th-August 14th. We will delve into 8 very popular professional development books and you don't have to read a word. I'll do all the work for you:) Go to amandawritenow.com to sign up. In this episode I share a brief summary of each of the 8 books including the most important takeaways I had from reading the books.

The end of the school year can be chaotic, so keeping students engaged and having fun is incredibly important. I have used the project detailed in this episode every year I’ve taught and it never fails to keep students loving their school work and writing until the very end. In this episode I discuss how simple this project is to get going and the steps to get this project rolling.

How big is the stack of books you want to read this summer? If you are like most English teachers, the stack is sky high. This is exactly why I’m hosting The English Teacher Summer Reading Series!

It’s a free event that is happening between June 4th-August 7th!

Attendees of the event will:

Go deep into 8 super popular professional development books without reading a single word (unless you want to of course!).

Receive a 5 minute video overview of each book every Saturday (except during my camping adventure vacation to Colorado, I’m finally getting out of the house woohoo!) 

The video overview will include a one sentence summary of the book.

Participate in discussions with other teachers in a private Facebook Group!

Receive 5 key insights gained from each book. 

Get recommendations about how to use each book to improve your teaching practice.

Access a whole bunch more bonuses, learn more here!

So, in this episode I kick off The English Teacher Summer Reading Series with an important book I recently read called 7 Myths About Education by Daisy Christodoulou.

Sign up for The English Teacher Summer Reading Series here: http://bit.ly/summer-reading-series-2021

Read the blog post here: https://amandawritenow.com/english-teacher-summer-reading-seriesfirst-book-up-7-myths-about-education-by-daisy-christodoulou/

Have you ever gone through a paradigm shift before? A paradigm is a set of patterns. Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says paradigms are just beliefs. But, what if those patterns, beliefs or paradigms shift? What if the beliefs you've held for so long begin to change? In this episode I discuss 5 paradigm shifts I've had recently when it comes to best teaching practices and the books that caused them!

https://amandawritenow.com/when-you-find-out-youve-been-teaching-wrong/

Are you often feeling overwhelmed with all you have to do? Maybe you feel scattered and aren’t sure what to focus your energy on. Mindfulness in your personal and professional life can most definitely help alleviate these anxieties. In this blog post I’ll share ten ways you can begin to bring more mindfulness into both your personal and professional life. You’ll learn what mindfulness is and how you can begin practicing in your personal life so you can start bringing these practices into your classroom.

Have you ever felt you weren’t supporting a group of students with writing? Maybe these students had IEPs, maybe they didn’t, maybe they were the students who turned in writing that was all over the place, spelling mistakes, run-on sentences, no paragraphs...you know what I’m talking about. And you just didn’t know how to support these students or even where to start!?!

You are not alone. I’ve felt at a loss for how to support struggling writers every single year of my 13 years as a teacher.

There are so many varying levels within one classroom. It can be hard to wrap your mind around how to support students who are struggling with writing and seem far behind all the other writers in your classroom. However, there are things we can do, that all students can benefit from, both advanced writers and struggling writers.

According to Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap and co-author of The Writing Revolution, students who struggle with writing, and all students for that matter, need explicit instruction at the sentence level. After reading Wexler’s books, I couldn’t agree more.

In this episode I discuss 5 simple mini lessons you can teach this week if you wanted!