What is good writing? 

To write well, one skill you need is the ability to determine what works in a piece of writing and what doesn't work.  Indeed, one way to think about revision is as a process of keeping the good parts while cutting out the bad.  However, students may not have had much practice distinguishing wheat from chaff.  They may know that the stories and essays the teacher assigns are intended to be examples of high-quality writing, but they may not be sure how that determination was made.

One way to involve students in thinking about the characteristics of good writing is to assign everyone to bring one page of good writing to class.  It can come from a magazine, a web site, the middle of a novel, or even a textbook.  In addition, they should bring an explanation (about a half page in length) of what it is about their piece that makes it good.  Alternately, you can take students to the library to make a selection, or have them pick from a textbook anthology. 

Once students have their selections and explanations in-hand, the discussion can take a variety of forms--pairs can swap and read one another's contributions silently, small groups can share and discuss, and/or the entire class can begin to build a set of criteria for what makes good writing. 

Part of the enjoyment of this activity is seeing the variety of texts students choose and how their choices can provide a window on them as readers and writers.  One student may admire rich description while another may prefer more straightforward exposition. Finally, one caution:  the goal is to get students involved in making their own evaluations and to help them to begin using evaluative language and ideas about writing ("I chose this because the author uses very descriptive words").  It won't work if you state or imply that the piece someone picked isn't actually very good.      

May 22, 2012
The U.S. Department of Education has unveiled a new grant competition focusing on districts that have ideas about how to personalize education.  You can read about it here.  (Even if you're not interested in the grant competition, read the second half of the article.  Are such changes smart or are they doomed to fail?)

May 2, 2012
The New Mexico PED announced yesterday that they are accepting applications for the New Mexico Teacher Evaluation Advisory Council.  There's more information here.

April 27, 2012
The has been lots of talk among writing teachers this week about a new study that purports to show that some software programs can evaluate student essays as well as a human grader. However, Les Perelman, director of Writing Across the Curriculum at MIT, remains skeptical.  You can read about it here.

April 18, 2012
PBS NewsHour host Ray Suarez will be in New Mexico this evening to host an education town hall focusing on the high school graduation rate.  Over 200 New Mexico teachers will attend.  The town hall will air on a special edition of New Mexico In Focus on April 27. 

More here.

April 9, 2012
As part of the American Library Association's annual State of America's Libraries Report, their Office for Intellectual Freedom has released their list of the ten most frequently challenged books and authors in 2011:

* ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
* The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
* The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
* My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
* The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
* Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
* Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
* What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
* Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
* To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
More here. 

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, if you missed the recent excellent PBS American Masters documentary, "Harper Lee: Hey Boo," you can watch it here. 

March 28, 2012
The great American poet Adrienne Rich died today at the age of 82.  You can read about her at poets.org. 

In addition to being a poet, Rich was also a gifted essayist. The brief but powerful "Claiming an Education" is among her best. 

March 14, 2012
The Public Education Department has launched a new Common Core web site.  There's a great deal of information on it, including links to resources and information about the timeline for implementation.  You can find it here.