Leah Thomas, a co-author of the Two Writing Teachers Blog, chats with Melanie to reflect on her recent experiences with parent-teacher conferences, discussing the challenges and rewards of connecting with families. She shares effective note-taking strategies, what assessments to present, and the impact of showcasing student writing samples. Leah also explains her writing workshop philosophy and offers guidance for teachers who are apprehensive about these meetings. By addressing common parental concerns and emphasizing the importance of building rapport, she provides practical advice for fostering strong partnerships with families. Tune in to discover how to celebrate student growth and support young writers!

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Go Deeper:

• What I Bring to Caretaker Conferences
• Making the Most of Caregiver Conferences

More About Leah:
Leah Thomas is a 2nd-grade teacher in St. Louis, MO. Leah has taught for seven years in the primary grades and loves sharing thoughts about writing workshop on the Two Writing Teachers blog. Outside of teaching, Leah loves to read, run, and write.

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Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

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For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

In this podcast episode, Melanie will share creative strategies to make the editing process engaging for students. Discover how to infuse fun into editing by using gamification techniques and various tools. You will also learn how to integrate editing into the drafting process and support students with scaffolds, checklists, and reminders to strengthen their editing skills.

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Go Deeper:

• Pickerwheel 
• TWTBlog posts about editing:
  • Editing Along the Way Often in 5 Minutes or Less
  • Something Do-able to Try: The Editing Minute
• UDL Guidelines

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Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Discover the art of building meaningful writer-to-writer relationships and managing time effectively in brief, impactful sessions. The discussion delves into the importance of individualized focus, highlighting how concentrating on a single aspect of writing per conference can lead to more manageable and absorbing lessons for students. Additionally, the episode explores the critical skills of deep listening and intentional questioning, offering insights into how these practices can transform writing conferences and enhance student engagement.

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Go Deeper:

• Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing by Melanie Meehan
• Peruse the #TWTBlog Archives on conferring.
• Welcome to Writing Workshop: Engaging Today’s Students with a Model That Works by Stacey Shubitz and Lynne R. Dorfman

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

In our 100th episode, Stacey explores the power of tangible artifacts in writing conferences. She discusses five essential tools to enhance the writer-to-writer relationship: mentor texts, demonstration texts, mini-charts, personalized word walls, and individualized checklists. Learn how to introduce and utilize these artifacts to support student writing effectively. Stacey also shares strategies for helping students leverage these tools independently. This episode will help you discover practical insights to make your writing instruction more impactful and foster deeper connections with your students.

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Go Deeper:

• Conferring Toolkits Blog Series
• Conferring with Writers: Beyond the Fundamentals of Writing Workshop
• Different Ways to Use Checklists in Writing Workshop
• Easily Create a Digital Conferring Toolkit
• Editing Along the Way… Often in 5 Minutes or Less
• Finding Purpose: The Key to Making High-Frequency Words Stick
• Four Types of Demonstration Texts & Demonstration Texts, Part Deux
• Let’s Talk About Methods for Conferring
• Making the Most Out of Charts
• Mentor Texts (Category on TWTBlog)
• Three Ways to Introduce Personal Editing Checklists in Writing Workshop

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Melanie shares four ways to reenergize student writers whose enthusiasm and stamina dwindle during more extended writing units. Her ideas are sure to reinvigorate students in engaging and meaningful ways.

Go Deeper:

• Keeping the Energy In a Unit of Study
• Writing as a Gift 

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

This episode features Betsy Hubbard, an experienced educator and co-author at Two Writing Teachers. The discussion explores the critical role of executive functioning skills in writing and how deficits in these areas can impact students' performance. Betsy shares practical strategies for teachers to support executive functioning in writing workshops, including techniques for breaking tasks into manageable chunks and providing organizational templates. The episode also covers the importance of incorporating executive functioning activities into the classroom environment. It offers examples of self-regulation techniques to help students overcome challenges in the writing process.

Previous TWT Podcast Episodes Mentioned

• Accommodations for Access to Writing Instruction
• Build Writing Confidence with the "Ready, Do, Done" Model
• Co-Create Writing Goals
• Unlock Strategies for Task Initiation

Go Deeper

• Contingency Maps for Writing Workshops
• FLIPP the Switch
• Quick Facts on Executive Functions from Child Mind Institute

More About Betsy Hubbard: 

• Personal Blogs
  • I’m Living My Words
  • The Power of Poetry
• TWTBlog Posts
• X (formerly Twitter) 

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Speakable is being incredibly generous to listeners of the Two Writing Teachers podcast. Go to speakable.io/twt to sign up for a free account or check out special offers, including 3 months of full access.

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

In this week's episode, Melanie shares six innovative strategies for using verbal rehearsal to empower young writers. She discusses techniques such as purposeful storytelling, visual cue cards, and fostering student collaborative partnerships. Enhancing oral language skills aims to strengthen writing abilities, demonstrating the powerful connection between speaking and writing. Discover how these approaches can help students recognize and harness their writing potential.

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Speakable is being incredibly generous to listeners of the Two Writing Teachers podcast. Go to speakable.io/twt to sign up for a free account or check out special offers, including 3 months of full access.

Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

In this episode, Stacey explores the "Ready, Do, Done" model by Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen to help students with executive functioning challenges become confident writers. She discusses the importance of setting clear intentions and gathering necessary materials ("Ready"), breaking down tasks and using visual aids ("Do"), and celebrating accomplishments to boost confidence ("Done"). Practical tips for teachers are provided to support students in the writing workshop. The model's flexibility and potential to empower learners in all areas are highlighted. 

This episode builds on a previous discussion about task initiation and is part of a series on executive functioning in writing instruction.

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Thanks to our sponsor!
Speakable is being incredibly generous to listeners of the Two Writing Teachers Podcast. Go to speakable.io/twt to sign up for a free account or check out special offers, including 3 months of full access.

*****
Go Deeper:

• A Clinical Model for Developing Executive Function Skills by Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen
• Cognitive Connections website
• Unlock Strategies for Task Initiation: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

This episode delves into the importance of understanding students as writers and its benefits to educators and learners. We explore how this knowledge fosters a stronger classroom community and informs more tailored instruction. Tried-and-true methods such as kid-watching, utilizing writer's notebooks, and conducting effective one-on-one conferences during the initial weeks of school are discussed. We also highlight the value of listening to students, reviewing previous portfolios, and using digital tools like audio or video recordings for self-introductions. Finally, we examine various ways to assess writing styles and preferences, including surveys and analyzing students' writing processes, to identify their strengths and areas for growth.

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Listeners can get 3 months free premium using the code TWTPOD at the checkout when upgrading their Book Creator account. Follow this link:  bookcreator.com/TWTpod

Online Resources:

• Classroom management posts on #TWTBlog
• Passionate Writers (mentioned as single-topic writers in the episode)
• Non-verbal Cues for Writers: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
• Making Space in Writing Workshop for Kids to Be Funny by Beth Moore
• Steve Graham: importance of community 
• Surveys and questionnaires through google forms
  • Self-reflection form 1 and Self-reflection form 2
• What’s a Conferring Scarf?

Books Mentioned:

• The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard by Michael Callahan
• The Responsive Writing Teacher by Melanie Meehan and Kelsey Sorum

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.

It's the final episode of season two, so we're discussing some of the best practices for writing instruction. We cover the importance of a thriving writing community and the writing process, and we explore the role of oral language in boosting writing stamina. We also discuss the importance of dedicated and intentional writing time, the reciprocity between reading and writing, and the thrill of writing for an authentic audience. This episode will tee you up for the next school year!

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Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Texthelp! 

Visit text.help/cowriter to learn more about Co:Writer prediction in Read&Write because everyone deserves the power to read, write, and understand.

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Go Deeper:

• Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing by Melanie Meehan
• Collaboration and Community in the Writing Workshop
• Craft Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts by Stacey Shubitz
• Exploring the Power of Oral Language: A Conversation with a Colleague (with Lainie Levin)
• Exploring Voice Typing During Writing Workshop
• Family Resources for At-Home Learning
• Research Round-up (Build Your Expertise Blog Series)
• The Editing Minute
• #TWTBlog Posts about Audience
• Writing Instruction Considerations by Carl Anderson & Matt Glover

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Thank you to our affiliate, Zencastr.

Use our special link (https://zen.ai/mqsr2kHXSP2YaA1nAh2EpHl-bWR9QNvFyAQlDC3CiEk) to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan. 

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Send us a text

Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us ratings/reviews on your favorite listening platform.

You may contact us directly if you want us to consult with your school district.

• Melanie Meehan: [email protected]
• Stacey Shubitz: [email protected]

Email us at [email protected] for affiliate or sponsorship opportunities.

For more about teaching writing, head to the Two Writing Teachers blog.