Read. Write. Thrive!

My first grade teacher, Miss Mary Bodi, spent a lot of time bringing out the writer in  her students. Regularly throughout the year, she asked us to choose a picture from a file. In it were magazine advertisements, clipped comics, and other images she’d collected.
One-by-one, were called to sit next to her at a table [...]

If your writers-in-training resist sitting for a fifteen-minute jounal entry or other writing exercise, you might have some success weaning them into writing “a sentence a day.” 
 This can be done on a computer, or handwritten in a notebook. I prefer the latter, since flipping to the story will maintain the quick and easy nature of [...]

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, started by John Baur and Mark Summers, aka Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket aka eight years ago.
Here’s a treasure chest of ideas for pirate-themed writing:

Ask your crew to make up their own pirate names and to describe what they look like, what adventures they’ve been on, what [...]

It is a weekday, and for most of us, that means that we are juggling work, homework, practices, and who knows what else.  It is rare that the kids do any additional writing at home. But, today is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the nation’s founding document, and as is every day–an opportunity for writing!  You [...]

The only time I ever got into trouble in junior high was related to an “underground” newspaper I wrote and distributed using an old typewriter, carbons, and the Xerox machine at the local library.
I recall that my mom was called as I sat on one side of the principal’s desk. I was frozen in fear, [...]

I found a curious definition in The Superior Person’s Book of Words
: the Abecadarian Insult, which is defined as follows: “Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte.”
The Translation follows: “Sir, you [...]

It Takes A Long Time to See A Flower
Georgia O’Keeffe once said this when referring to the observation skills necessary to paint the intricate details of flowers in large scale.

I like to apply it to the practice of writing description. Rather than really taking the time to observe and note details, my college students [...]

“…don’t you like to write letters? I do because it’s such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you’ve done something.”  ~Ernest Hemingway
In this month’s issue of Family Fun magazine is a letter from a woman who prompted her son’s interest in writing by encouraging him to write to his favorite baseball [...]

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s dirty looks
So goes the chorus of Alice Cooper’s anthem, School’s Out, that gets ample airplay each June.
I am A-OK with doing away with the teacher’s dirty looks, but I’m a firm believer that the books and pencils should not be discarded just because school is on hiatus. . . [...]

The earlier your child begins writing, the earlier he or she will begin enjoying making their mark on the world. Hopefully, those marks are contained to paper, rather than spread over walls.
The doodling and drawing that toddlers and preschoolers do IS prewriting, and it does have its place in literacy learning. So, how can you [...]