by Donna | Feb 13, 2018
In my experience, students either love story writing or hate it. They either have ideas floating around in their heads, waiting for the next story writing unit–or they feel that they have no ideas and hope for a stomach bug that week! This is one reason I use the Directed Writing Approach in my books–so that each step of each type of paper is laid out incrementally.
One common problem that students have when story writing is telling “first this happened; then this happened; after this, that happened; later on, this happened” by students. What could be an exciting, action-packed story becomes a narrative/retelling–or worse yet, an essay. Have you ever wondered how to help students from the start with this rambling problem?
(more…)
by Donna | Aug 26, 2017
It’s the end of August. Might seem like an odd time for a curriculum sale—but we’re doing it anyway! And it’s a good one! Use coupon code MC10 to get 10% off your order!!! (more…)
by Donna | Aug 19, 2017
When I post a live video of one of my writing classes on Facebook, I always get those same questions: When will you offer classes for people who don’t live near you? Are you going to be having online classes soon? And I keep saying “soon”! Well, soon is now here. We are officially having our very first LIVE online writing class (remedial writing, of sorts). I will enumerate the details below.
(more…)
by Donna | Aug 5, 2017
Index cards. Hundreds of index cards. Stacks of sources. And hours of research and card making. Lots of confusion. And less understanding of how to synthesize the gathered information. Those are words and phrases that describe my high school composition class days. I finished my paper. I got an A–and then when I set out to write my books thirty years later, I knew I had to develop a better way. There had to be a method by which kids could research from multiple sources, organize that information, outline, and write—with less stress, headache, and bad memories (and hopefully WITH skills that they could carry on to college).
(more…)
by Donna | Jul 15, 2017
Teaching writing is not for the faint of heart! It is the most subjective “subject” in school—and, consequently, can be one of the most challenging to teach. Oftentimes, materials designed to teach writing are more writing idea than writing instruction. They leave the student (and the teacher!) wondering exactly what to do to complete the writing prompt. This is one reason that after I write a book (one hundred in all!), test, test, and retest the book with real (or virtual starting this fall!) students to be sure that all of the steps are included and clear. Last week I shared a lesson from one of my books that I did with a mixed live/virtual class about writing from a given source. This week I’d love to give you another peek into my online writing classes for the fall with another cooperative “guinea pig” group!
(more…)
