He laughed and laughed saying, “You think Zack wants you, Amanda? A simple little girl. Fahget it. Just fahget it. He goes for hot hot girls. Get out of those sweats and maybe he’ll take you.” Take me where? To
October 18, 2023amykoehn It’s been years since I read Donalyn Miller’s book,Reading in the Wild,and if asked, I’d probably even be a little rusty on what exactly her premise was, but lately, if I had to describe my classroom, that’s the phrase I would use. And it makes me...
24Gil left the temple and was walking away when his commission came up to him to call his attention to the state of the game.2“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one plastic bucket seat here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down....
I’ve essentially had heart disease all my life, and have been under regular cardiac care since adulthood. (Which tends to make me just a little bit blasé about many other things some find anxiety-inducing . . . such as the recent pandemic . . .) ...
“But you will be a beautiful narrator,” she said,___me of how much I loved to read stories aloud to her. “The narrator’s___ is every bit as important as the part of a princess.” Over the next few weeks, with her constant___, I learned to take pride in the role. 1.A...
I scribble notes of what can be spotted through the window. A crane, in the rice field on the edge of town. A waterlogged car park beside the factory. A line-up of cars at the level crossing. Drainage channels and telephone wires divide the landscape into neat blocks as low clouds ...
The sessions would consist of timed, prompted writing, trying out different kinds of prompts, different lengths of scribble-time. There would be a “teachable moment” with a craft tip of some kind. I would read aloud some short piece that exemplified what I was teaching. Everyone loves to ...
Did you spot the elements of that exercise? If not, here they are: Challenges: Domestic abuse, alcoholic step-dad, little brother Fernando’s birth, family’s undocumented status Effects: Author and his brother shared the mental strain, father was arrested, funds were tight, mom worked two ...
Take it through as many pruning sessions as you reasonably can. It usually works better to do a pruning pass, then let the post rest for a little while and come back to it with fresh eyes. When I prune, I look for: Words that can be cut without losing meaning ...
I carry a notebook with me, so when I have an idea, I can scribble it down right away before I forget. I wrote the first draft of a picture book OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW (Chronicle Books, 2011) on a school bus on the way home from a 7th grade snowshoe field trip in the Adirond...