Hello, friends! How goes your writing this week? It’s hard to believe that we’re already in our final week of Teachers Write. Before we get started with today’s mini-lessons, I want to say thank you. I’m so grateful you chose to spend part of your summer writing with us, and I hope you’ll take that…
Welcome to Week 3 of Teachers Write! In last week’s camper survey, many of you shared that you’re working on picture books and/or poetry, both forms that depend on economy of language, where every word truly counts. So this week, we’re going to take a look at fine tuning. My next novel, THE TROUBLE WITH…
Welcome to Week 2 of writing camp! Now that you’ve had a chance to settle in, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work in earnest. Today’s session applies to all kinds of writing, but later on we’ll be looking at revision strategies for different genres and forms, and I’d like to…
Happy summer, friends! And welcome to Teachers Write, our free online summer writing camp especially for teachers & librarians. Whether you’re a new writer or you’ve been with us from the very beginning, I’m so glad you’re here. A few housekeeping things before we get started… Teachers Write is meant to be a fun, low-stress…
Hello, teacher/librarian/writer friends! It’s almost time for Teachers Write, our free online summer writing camp for teachers & librarians. Have you signed up yet? If not, you can do that here. For those who are new, Teachers Write is all about writing in community. It’s about walking the walk and taking risks with our own writing…
It’s hard to believe that Teachers Write wraps up this week! Today, we’re talking about one of the things that makes a poem different from prose — the way it looks on the page. Mentor poet Margarita Engle joins us for a mini-lesson on line breaks. The Power of Line Breaks in Free Verse Line…
Reading aloud is a great way to revise a poem, listening for the magic. The sounds that make a line sing. As today’s mentor poet Nikki Grimes tells us, poetic devices such as alliteration and assonance help to create that magic. Tiny Tricks to Make Your Writing Sing Using words with the same letter or sound…
One of the great things about being part of a writing community is that we’re constantly learning from one another. Today mentor poet Rajani LaRocca shares a challenge that’s all about how putting constraints on our writing can spark creativity — an exercise she learned about in a workshop with award-winning author K.A. Holt. Say…
This week, we turn our attention from poetic forms to subjects. Mentor poet Rajani LaRocca joins us with a challenge to write about names. What’s in a Name? Names are important in the real world and in fiction. When I write, I do a lot of research when I’m trying to choose character names. In…
Welcome back to Haiku Week at Teachers Write! Today, mentor poet Loree Griffin Burns shares her own haiku experience and offers up a writing challenge with lots of bonus resources to explore! Finding Haikus My haiku journey began in the summer, near a beach in Rhode Island. Not on the beach,because it was raining there…
