Let’s Take Another Look at the Fish: The Writing Process as Discovery

By Bob Tierney

Excerpt from the article:

“Just as Agassiz had his student think about the fish without his notes or the specimen, I often have my students do what I call Neuron Note. The name is biological, it is jazzy, and it implies thinking. The students go home without their books or notes and write a summary of what they think they understand. I stress to the students that it is all right if they do not understand, but they need to realize they don’t understand. Just as Agassiz’s student said, “I see how little I saw before,” the Neuron Note helps students identify what they do not yet understand.”

Read the full article

Download “Let’s Take Another Look at the Fish: The Writing Process as Discovery”

Topics/tags:

Teaching Writing

Going the Distance

By National Writing Project

In today’s episode we will talk about the recently published book, Going the Distance: The Teaching Profession in a Post-COVID World. This comprehensive study of teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic has a lot to teach us about creating a healthy, resilient teaching profession able to face future crises.

Positioning Writers as Decision Makers

This short chapter from When Teaching Writing Gets Tough: Challenges and Possibilities in Secondary Writing Instruction offers three suggestions for changing your writing instruction to support student writers as independent decision makers.

Chief Red Cloud and James Cook: An Agate Friendship

This video - designed as a three-part interview accompanied by writing prompts - focuses on the friendship and cultural sharing between Chief Red Cloud and homesteader James Cook of Agate Ranch.