Before you start speaking or writing, you must consider your audience. We adults understand this and automatically do it without giving it a second thought. Students, on the other hand, sometimes don't realize that there is a formal register and an informal register in English. Therefore, teachers must explicitly teach students how and when to use the two registers. In this post, I'll be giving you some tips and sharing some freebies you can use when you introduce this topic to your students. Introduction to Formal/Informal Language I would begin this lesson by using my document camera to display the posters below. After students have read the two speech bubbles, I'd direct them to compare and contrast the two characters' speech with a partner. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THESE POSTERS FOR FREE! Following this partner discussion, I would state that there are two types of English: formal and informal. After defining formal and informal, I would ask stude......

Are you curious to know about this Warning: 5 Simple Mistakes Made in Writer's Workshop? Welcome! I'm Pam from Rockin Resources and spent 26 years in the classroom. Now I work as a writing coach and curriculum designer and I'd love to share my ideas with you! In case you aren't familiar with my vision, I focus my teaching ideas around MOTIVATE, EDUCATE, DIFFERENTIATE ! I hope you find something useful! LOSING CONFIDENCE It is OK to admit you don't have confidence in writing! You are not alone! Did you know that the National Council on Teacher Quality scanned 2,400 syllabuses for teacher preparation programs and found little evidence that teaching writing was being covered? SAY WHAT? I know I didn't receive training in college on teaching writing and I am the first to admit that I started off my career lacking confidence to teach it. I figured out quickly that I wanted that to change and found ways to ROCK MY WRITING! I love the saying, "Fake it......

Do your students have a tough time coming up with writing topics?? I love to give my students choice when writing, but I always find that one of their biggest struggles is deciding what to write about. At the beginning of any of my writing units, one of the very first lessons I teach is on generating writing topics. For OPINION WRITING, I thought I would share some of the categories I discuss with students when generating opinion writing topics of their own. Favorite Things For students who are new to Opinion Writing, writing about their favorite things is a good place to start. Each student has their own special interests, and we all know that they hold very strong opinions about their favorite things. I ask students to create a list of all of their favorite things, and provide topic suggestions, such as favorite sport, food, book, movie, school subject, and animal. Students can add any of their favorites to their lists, and after discussions with their classmates these li......

Since writing is my jam, I have tried so many different writing strategies in my classroom over the years and found ones that truly work like a charm. I wouldn't teach writing without them. Each strategy sets the stage for effective writing. LEARN 5 TESTED WRITING STRATEGIES THAT WORK LIKE A CHARM! 1.  SCAFFOLD YOUR WRITER'S WORKSHOP LESSONS The writer's workshop lessons should be presented to students in a step-by-step progression. When lessons are planned out and in an order that makes sense for that type of writing, students' writing will undoubtedly improve. They will understand the writing process and see how a quality piece of writing starts from the beginning stages of prewriting to the end stage with a final copy. Learn from my mistakes. I used to teach different mini lessons, but until I focused on an order to take one piece of writing all the way through a series of mini lessons, I didn't see the same results. It may take a long time to finish......

The first year that our 1:1 iPads were released, I taught primarily reading and writing. I love technology, but I was more than a little concerned about my students' writing skills declining. I had used a lot of technology in the past for research and creation in project based learning, but had also used journals and other hand written forms. While many other teachers fell in the trap of shiny reading and writing apps, I was determined to make sure that my lessons stayed consistent with what I knew were the essential lessons my students needed. We continued to integrate writing into  project based learning , but my writer's workshop and other mini-lessons went totally digital. Here are my tips after spending a few years implementing writing on 1:1 devices. Model, Model, Model I've always heavily modeled writing, but it became even more important when we were 1:1. The great thing about having the devices was that I could share my model digitally. At first, I t......

I was in the classroom for 26 years and I have to admit I fumbled many times. The good thing is I found what works and what doesn't work. Throughout those bumps in the road, there are lessons to be learned- even for teachers! Read on to find out what NOT to do in the classroom and alternative suggestions that will have your students begging to learn! 1.  DON'T USE A TEXTBOOK EXCLUSIVELY I'm not going to lie. When I first started teaching back in the dark ages, I thought the textbook was the best way. Who knew better than an already created source of information? I quickly learned that students weren't learning as much as I thought and guess what? They were bored reading one page after another. Look at a textbook as a guide, not the sole plan of your lesson. Think of Social Studies for example. When I was teaching American History in fourth grade, we had a textbook. My students were learning the bare minimum. There was so much information, that I didn......

Why does writing in complete sentences seem like such a grueling task? I'm sure you've heard students say, "Do we have to write in complete sentences?" Learn effective teaching strategies to help even your most reluctant writers. These tips will guide your students to be successful writers. Students are being held to more rigorous standards. Most teachers not only require students to write in complete sentences when writing essays, but also when answering text-dependent questions  for reading comprehension, math problems, and content area activities. With this requirement in all subject areas, students need to master the basic tools to writing in complete sentences.   Why go back to the basics? A shocking fact:  27% of 12th graders in the U.S. perform at grade level in writing. Many upper grade teachers think students already have the fundamentals of sentence structure ingrained in their brains. They quickly learn this is far from the truth. Althoug......

Most writing curriculums encourage teachers to use mentor text and modeling in their writing workshop. Why? Because they are effective instructional strategies that promote student engagement and give students powerful tools to apply in their own writing. Learn about these writing strategies, why you should use them, and tips for teaching them in your classroom that will help even your most reluctant writers! MENTOR TEXT and MODELING are both effective strategies to use when showing students examples of a writer's craft. That is why I chose to discuss them together.  Prior to using these strategies with a new writing lesson, provide students with an anchor chart explaining the meaning of that particular writing skill or writer's craft. Then use mentor text as well as modeling to show students how to apply the lesson in their own writing. Using both strategies will provide your students with two explicit examples. First, let's look at the definitions of mentor......