Even Reluctant Writers Will Love Six-Word Memoirs

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Six-word memoirs were a quick and excellent way to get students writing, revising, and crafting digital texts.

At the start of every school year, I look for a fun way for students to introduce themselves to each other and to me. Last year, I asked students to craft visual autobiographies on Padlet. This year, since I’m teaching a course for 11th and 12th graders on Modern Fiction and Nonfiction, I also wanted a quick activity to get my students writing their own modern stories. Enter the Six-Word Memoir! (Just in time for the National Day on Writing! #WhyIWrite) Read More

Let’s Annotate the Web! Meta Digital Writing with Troy Hicks

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For this month’s Digital Literacies Collaborative (DLC) social reading, I invite you to read and annotate Troy Hicks’ (2018) excellent piece from Voices in the Middle on “The Next Decade of Digital Writing.” In addition to joining the ongoing discussion throughout the article, I especially invite you to think publicly about your next steps or goals as a teacher of digital writing.

In the article, Hicks reflects on the evolution of digital writing instruction and highlights five educators’ innovative practices. Hicks describes his purpose as follows: Read More

A Transmedia Writing Project by Global Collaborators

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Thanks to a series of well-timed clicks on social media, I recently became one of twenty, international co-authors of a collaborative digital writing project, the NetNarr Alchemy Lab.

How I Got Involved

Scrolling through social media, I was intrigued by a playful invitation that teased the possibility of a transmedia, collaborative story.

“Come. Join us,” the invitation stated.

“Take a chance. We’ll be right there with you. Together, we hope to create something magical.”

The sign-up sheet made the following, modest offer: Read More

Mindfulness & Social and Emotional Learning in the Classroom

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Are you looking to add mindfulness or social and emotional learning (SEL) activities to your teaching?

My two latest publications discuss mindfulness and social and emotional learning in the English classroom. Both articles share tech-free lessons that can be adapted across grade levels and content areas.

“Mindful ELA: Lessons from a Grassroots Wellness Initiative” (see below) tells the story of a teacher-led movement to increase wellness in a high school, and then zooms in on several mindfulness lessons from two English teachers’ classrooms. Read More

Sketchnotes: An Educator’s Adventures in Visual Notetaking

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Glancing over my shoulder during a session at NCTE 2016, I spotted the following notes:

While I knew I could never create notes as beautiful as Tanny McGregor’s (above), I realized immediately that her method could revolutionize my own notetaking. A quick Twitter search led me to the name of the method: sketchnoting. Sketchnotes are “rich visual notes created from a mix of handwriting, drawings, hand-drawn typography, shapes, and visual elements like arrows, boxes, and lines” (The Sketchnote Handbook). Read More