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.”

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Teaching Writing

The Write Time with Author Ellen Oh and Educator Melissa Thom

By National Writing Project

Ellen Oh is an award-winning author of numerous middle grade and young adult books including The Spirit Hunters series and Prophecy trilogy, and is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books. Melissa Thom is a teacher librarian at Bristow Middle School in Connecticut with 22 years of educational experience and former president of the Connecticut Association of School Librarians.

Brian Johnson: Why I Write

Teach What You Love—Chapter 5 from When Challenge Brings Change: How Teacher Breakthroughs Transform the Classroom

In 2023, the National Writing Project copublished When Challenge Brings Change: How Teacher Breakthroughs Transform the Classroom. In this collection of compelling narratives, high-school and college teachers show us how they have taken on issues such as faculty and student relationships; struggles over personal identity in the classroom; the joys and complexities of working with emergent bilinguals, developing writers, and first-year college students; and the forever question of how to engage students.