Show Notes for The Write Idea Podcast Episode 1: Welcome!

Welcome to the Write Idea. My name is Kathie Harsch, I’m an English teacher, business owner of Teach2Write and a self-published author. 

This is my first podcast episode, and I’m SO excited to be here...sharing writing ideas with you. 

I’ll be coming to you every Sunday…. with writing strategies and techniques for all writers, as well as teachers, who are looking for ways to help their students IMPROVE their writing skills. 

Who is she? Why her?

So, I know what you’re thinking - who is this chick...and why does she think she can tell ME anything about writing? I’m so glad you’re here and if you’ve listened this far, you definitely deserve an answer to these important questions. I’m Kathleen Harsch, Kathie to most people. I'm the wife of Dan, for the past 24 years, he's a nurse. I'm a mom of our 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son. We have 2 large dogs - Gus and Copper.

I'm an English Language Arts and Creative Writing teacher in Florida and have been for the past 24 years. I'm also a self-published author of teen fiction - I’ll tell you why I self-pubbed in another episode - and I enjoy ALL things writing, except that I'm not a fan of the 5 paragraph essay! More on that later...

Why does she think she can tell ME anything about writing?

Now, to answer your second question - yeah I’m a mind reader! - Why do I think I can tell you about writing?

I'm not only a teacher and writer, I also consider myself a researcher. Over the years, I've read books about the teaching of all types of writing - nonfiction, fiction and poetry. I will be sharing some of those books with you, too, but I put into practice what I discover. I’m always looking for ways to help my students become better writers.

I’m constantly trying to become both a better teacher and a better writer.

 I want to share this information with YOU.

After reading countless essays, paragraphs and other student writing, you might not have time to do a lot of the research I’ve been able to do. Or new teachers trying to figure out how to best help your students as you learn the craft of being an educator. It is a craft, and it does take time, so be patient with yourself.

So, YOU are my reason for doing this podcast...

I've helped thousands of students achieve their writing goals

Over the years, I've helped thousands of students achieve their writing goals. I want to tell you about a couple of them right now.  

Kurt... that’s not his real name, of course…Kurt...was this really bright kid…Kurt was in my gifted ELA class. He was very articulate, but he really struggled with essay writing, especially the state writing test Florida used at that time. The essay students had to write was either persuasive or expository, and students were only tested in 4th, 8th and 11th grades for writing. 

So, most teachers only focused on writing during the testing years, and focused on reading other years, since their evaluations and their test scores depended on the reading test exclusively. This lack of writing instruction, compounded by the test structure (students had NO reading materials to pull evidence from), so ALL the writing ideas had to come from their own imagination made these essays very difficult for students to write.

Students between 4th and 8th grades grow up significantly, but their writing often did not reflect that maturity and  the response had to be long enough - the dreaded 5 paragraph essay - to cover the topic.

Case study of Kurt -Writing strategy:

So Kurt, he knew a lot about black holes, but knew nothing about how to write an essay like this. He didn’t know how to elaborate. 

The FCAT also had strange prompts, too like...“Who is a hero in your life? Explain why…” OR “Persuade your principal to take your entire 8th grade class on a field trip. Where would you go? What would you do there?” 

Student Scores were on a  0-6 scale, and Kurt often scored low on my practice essays, usually a 2 out of 6. Like I said - he needed help with elaboration.

I showed Kurt techniques for how to add examples and anecdotes to help him to explain his points. He found a technique that finally clicked for him. His essays really improved dramatically AND He scored a 5.5 out of 6 on his FCAT writing test. 

Only about 3 percent of kids in the state earned scores that high! 

I had students who routinely scored higher than other students in my district and state.  Even though I taught him how to beat the test, I also taught him how to elaborate and other writing strategies and techniques that Kurt could use in high school and beyond.

He’s just ONE of the thousands of kids I’ve helped.

Case Study of Tiara - Writing Technique:

Another student - Tiara - needed help with writing a poem for her social studies class. Shout out to history teachers that give creative writing assignments!

I taught Tiara how to mind map her ideas and how to include sensory details to describe as if the reader was one of the soldiers in the American Revolution - the cold, the lack of proper boots, the overwhelm of facing well-trained, British regulars. By using this technique, she was able to write her poem the way SHE wanted to express it. 

Giving students the tools to express their VOICE...it's really powerful.

That’s what I hope to do on this podcast…Help you to find your writer’s voice, to be able to come up with tons of ideas and learn which ones you want to use and when you want to use them...

This podcast is for ANYONE who wants to improve their writing skills AND...for teachers who need PROVEN strategies to help their students to succeed. The best thing about writing strategies and techniques is that you can apply them to ANY type of writing.  In FACT, I used a few of them while coming up with this podcast episode!

ANYONE can use the strategies and techniques I’m going to talk about each week…

By the way...I’ll be dropping these episodes to you on Sunday mornings because I know many teachers are lesson planning on Sundays or checking their plans to make sure everything is good to go.

The Write Idea Show Notes Conclusion:

So, there you have it - my reasons for doing this podcast. I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite awhile now...and I’m so glad I took the leap and finally did it.   

Before I go, I want to give you a hint about next week’s podcast. Oh! I love this topic so much, I can’t wait to talk to you about it. It’s one of the most essential tools I believe every writer should have. I will tell you ALL about it in next Sunday’s podcast.I can’t wait to share with you how I use this essential writer’s tool. 

 By the way, it’s not a computer, although that’s essential, too.

Thank you so much for listening to the first episode of THE WRITE IDEA.  

 Like I said, I will be coming to you EVERY Sunday to talk about writing strategies and techniques that will help YOU and if you’re a teacher, to help your students. 

If you like the Write Idea Podcast, please give a rating and leave a comment. What would you like to hear about writing on this podcast? 

I will choose one or two of your comments or questions and give you a shout out and an answer. 

If you'd like to visit my website, click here: https://teach2write.com/

Music Credit: "Come Inside" by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba