Archive for category Writing

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Posted by wcarozza in Writing on April 26, 2012

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Syracuse, NY with my wife and son Jake about to head out to a college tour at the home of the Orangemen. Tapping this post out on my iPhone.

My colleague Patrick Larkin, Principal of Burlington, MA High School is recognizing Poem In Your Pocket Day and he tweeted this wonderful poem from his blog:

New Post: My #PocketPoem for Poem In Your Pocket Day http://t.co/7lrhD2Ii #bhschat

As a musician and very part-time songwriter, I respect those who write poetry, especially song lyrics that transcend cliches and cause the reader to reflect on the larger issues of life.

Let’s take a minute and write a short poem to someone we care about.

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Writing

Posted by wcarozza in Professional Development, Writing on October 16, 2008

Like any profession, those in the teaching field have to keep up with changes and areas that need honing. One of our focus areas this year, especially in grades K-6, is writing. Our assessment data has shown that this has been an area of relative weakness, and it has been a number of years since we have spent concentrated time on writing. 

When I was in school in the 60s and 70s, the majority of teachers used grammar and length as the two main factors in assessing the quality of writing. Now we see writing as made up of a number of different traits such as ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. When we assess our students’ writing three times of year with regular benchmarks on our digital portfolios, we have a rubric based on those six traits. It’s a much clearer form of assessment.
In our professional development, we are also revisiting what is known as the Writing Process which we teach children to follow. Under this model, students learn to collaborate with their peers in brainstorming, editing, and revising their writing. 

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