Author: Matt
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My Favorite Lessons of the Fall
I’m not sure about you, but for me, these pre-Thanksgiving November weeks are always some of the hardest times of the school year. The heady energy and optimism of the new year have waned and the cumulative impact of the seemingly endless back-to-school requirements—cookouts and capsule night and conferences—combined with this being the longest stretch […]
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A Quick Guide to Praise, Compliments, and Asset-Focused Instruction
Educators are some of the most positive people I know, and yet studies from the last 40 years have consistently shown that when teachers respond to students, both in person and in writing, they tend to overwhelmingly focus on the negatives and deficits: The praise to criticism/reprimand ratios seen in these and similar studies can […]
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How a Simple Notebook Revolutionized My Ability to Track Student Data
Every night before bed, my wife takes a few minutes to document the ups, downs, advances, and milestones of our children. I have to admit that at first I was somewhat agnostic about the practice. I’ve always had a pretty good memory, so I think at some level I was certain that I would remember […]
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How the Volleyball Effect Hurts Deeper Learning (And What to Do About It)
The start of the school year, as it seemingly does every year, has reminded me that schools are often overwhelming places. The pure number of humans and classes and lessons that populate our schools each day is enough to make one’s head spin. Of course, this hustle and bustle isn’t all bad. The energy can […]
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Starting the Year With a Sea of Stories
A quick note from Matt: Today is the first day of the 2022-2023 school year in Ann Arbor, which means that along with this post, this is the first Monday that I will post my weekly Essay of the Week entries. Check them out here, if you are interested! The title of today’s post is […]
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Ways to Upgrade Feedback This Year Part 2: Two-Way Flash Feedback
In my first ever video at the start of the week, I discussed the importance of feedback literacy, which is where we teach students how to receive and use feedback. My second video today is a new spin on an old favorite of mine: two-way flash feedback, or the idea that while we should find ways to give quick, […]
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Ways to Upgrade Feedback This Year Part 1: Feedback Literacy
A few weeks ago, I discussed reasons why writing can be scary for a lot of students and adults. Of the reasons that I gave, the one that has always terrified me the most is that writing is an intersection of public and permanent. It our thoughts and ideas and perspective, set in amber for […]
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What Should We Do With Writing Formulas and Rules? An Interview with Jennifer Fletcher on Teaching Writing Rhetorically
I was initially hoping to release my first-ever videos this week, but it turns out that video production has a bit of a learning curve and video uploading takes a VERY long time. The videos are nearly ready though, so look for them early next week! Instead, I wanted to share something really special with […]
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How I Plan to Regain My Nights and Weekends in the Upcoming School Year
My last post on how to cultivate student writing identities was maybe closer to a novella than a blogpost, so this week I am striving to keep it shorter and simpler. In keeping with the theme of brevity, I want to talk about the ways that I plan to keep the work monster at bay […]
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A Guide to Helping Students See Themselves As Writers
There exists a vast catalog of books that discuss the sad truth that far too many students come into our classes each year holding attitudes towards reading that range from agnostic to downright antagonistic. From The Book Whisperer to Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys to Book Love to the upcoming book I Hate Reading, there […]
Matthew M. Johnson 