All Blog Posts Tagged 'teaching' (5)

Teaching elementary and secondary students how to write well is challenging. Many students don’t understand the core principles behind writing, including the basics of sentence and paragraph structure, a logical progression of ideas, and reader awareness. Others don’t have the technical skills of writing, including grammar and punctuation. However, with consistent, year-by-year, engaging instruction by committed teachers who understand not only the value but also the principles and skills of…

     Working as a tutor in the writing center, it's very common to get started on a discussion completely unrelated towards the student's assignments. I find myself going on about my own personal writing issues, current events relating to argumentative essays, and even the occasional discussion of entertainment. Last night I talked with someone about "Assassin's Creed 3," which already has a strong following, but a few days ago I brought up "The Walking Dead"--big mistake. I love the…

Doug Lucas, author of The Flats Teacher's Test, is my guest today with a post about why he wrote a book that one reviewer called "an explosive story...crossing the boundaries...behind the doors of the educational system". To all my teacher friends and parents, this may be worth your time.



The Flats Teacher's Test is ONLY $4.99 for Kindle (or FREE for Prime users) and you can get it here - …

Paragraph quality is not determined by its length, long or short. Rather, quality is determined by how well the paragraph communicates a single idea. Long paragraphs, however, can be difficult simply because they are long.

The following 2 strategies will help you write long paragraphs that work.

Day 137: Use topic chains to create cohesive…

I am reading a book called "Why Boys Fail" and it is actually clearing up some questions I have had for a while. Since I have had experiences with the special education population in various school districts and cities, I am now aware of a trend. Boys make up the majority. And in black neighborhoods this is worst. Now I do believe there are multiple factors and various stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, administrators, government, principals, and the…