Jeffery E. Frieden Make Them Process It, Writer's Notebook, Writing

Get Your Students to Write OVER 20,000 Words This Year!

This year, I’m going to get my students to write over 20,000 words! And I’m not even counting the essays they are going to type.

At the start of the year, my students will begin building a Writer’s Notebook. This is a place the will house low-stakes, pressure-free writing, lessons on sentence craft, and a place where they will practice thinking through revision.

Here’s the English teacher math that came up with 20,000+ words:

  • 150 words per page
  • 5 pages of writing a week
  • 15 weeks of writing per semester

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Jeffery E. Frieden Reading

Want Your Students to Read More? Make Them Sign Up!

Last year I set out to solve the riddle of how to get students to do more independent reading. I was convinced that if they were able to choose their books and if they stuck with that book long enough, they would enjoy reading. I don’t know to what extent my students would claim they enjoyed their reading, but I did find some great ways to nudge them to do more of it.

In today’s post I will share with you the top nudge in getting students to complete more independent reading. And the tip comes from the psychological effect of signing your name.

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Jeffery E. Frieden Uncategorized

Summer Reads

Summer is here, and for most teachers that means getting to the books they have put aside for months. I have a growing list, but let’s keep it simple here.

These are my top five titles that I want to complete this summer, in no particular order:

  • Write Short Kindle Books: A Self-Publishing Manifest for Non-Fiction Authors by Nathan Meunier
  • Visible Learning for Literacy: Implementing the Practices That Work Best to Accelerate Student Learning by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie
  • Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris
  • Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students by Erik Palmer
  • All These Shiny Worlds: The 2016 ImmerseOrDie Anthology by Jefferson Smith et al.

What are you reading?

Connect with me over at Goodreads.