My Favorite End of the Year Writing Assignment
The end of the school year is not only on the horizon, it—like a sunset in full glory—has become the horizon. And if you are like me, these waning days where all eyes fix upon the horizon can be a challenge. Suddenly, issues with work completion and engagement sprout where there were no issues before; countless end of the year ceremonies, activities, and celebrations arise to compete for bandwidth; and the overall level of work that has been building all year up to this point inevitably dips a bit. These issues pop up in May with the same regularity as…
Continue ReadingTwo Exciting Summer Opportunities!
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I have a new post coming at the end of the week, but today I wanted to share what I’m up to this summer, in case you want to join me. Along with the newsletter, I have two big projects I’ll be doing: Camp Rewrite Summer 2024 After a wonderful first summer, Camp Rewrite is back for 2024! For those who weren’t a part of it last year, Camp Rewrite’s goal is to offer a summer restoration and professional learning experience that aims to be equal parts rejuvenation, reconnection, replenishing, and reimagining the ELA classroom. Specifically, it…
Continue ReadingQuestions from Readers: Should I Encourage Students to Get AI Feedback?
Generative AI is the tool that launched a million thought-pieces in the education world and beyond. This makes sense, as despite its current limitations and endless cliches and somewhat unsettling voice, it is still a remarkable, society-altering new invention that our students will encounter, use, and have to contend with throughout their lives. In the nearly eighteen months since it burst onto the scene, I’ve been wary of joining the cacophony of here’s-how-AI-will change-education pieces because there is still so much we don’t know, but as I watched a student of mine last week just blindly accept some rather massive…
Continue ReadingOne of the Most Powerful, Least-Covered Grammar and Language Topics
In 2007 writing-instruction legends Steve Graham and Dolores Perin did a meta-analysis on a massive scale to get to the bottom of what works when it comes to writing instruction. The result, a report called Writing Next, offered eleven recommendations for better writing instruction that is still considered the gold standard by many. Most of the eleven recommendations wouldn’t surprise veteran composition teachers. They suggested things like the use of models and mentor texts, having students engage in a writing process, and peer review during drafting and revision. There was one surprising detail though: Of the eleven recommendations, there was…
Continue ReadingWhere My Grammar and Language Lessons Begin: Tools for Emphasis
In my last post I discussed the first of five lessons I’m sharing this spring from my new book Good Grammar: Joyful and Affirming Language Lessons That Work for More Students (due out this summer). The concept I shared, while simple, has been powerful in my classes: I’ve found students learn language lessons (encompassing grammar, mechanics, usage, and rhetoric) best when they better understand how much language knowledge they already bring to the table and get context for why it is important to learn about language, even if they can already write and communicate in impressive ways. The lessons also…
Continue ReadingFive Lessons I Learned While Writing a Book on Grammar, Language, Mechanics, and Writing Instruction: Part 1
Happy Belated New Year! I’m delighted to announce that I’m properly back to the newsletter, and for those wondering where I’ve been, I spent the fall and early winter finishing up my now-completed manuscript for my third book: Good Grammar: Joyful and Affirming Language Lessons That Work for More Students (due out in July). I took on this project nearly three years ago knowing that it would be a heavy lift. Grammar, language, and mechanics have long been and remain some of the hardest, thorniest, and most contentious topics to teach in the ELA classroom. In 2003, Brock Haussamen in…
Continue ReadingSmile Before Winter Break (and Thanksgiving and Halloween)
As a young teacher I was advised by multiple veteran teachers not to smile before Winter Break. The notion was that because I was new (and in my case looked fifteen), I needed to show that I meant business. That my class was business. This advice was nearly universal for new teachers when I came into the classroom almost two decades ago. These days it is less common, which is probably a good thing because it turns out a smile can be a potent tool for both pedagogy and one’s own psychology—especially during long slogs like the start-of-school-to-winter-break-one we are…
Continue ReadingMy ChatGPT and Generative AI Policy This Year
Like many teachers, I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about how I would handle AI in my classes. That journey was often an all-seasons-in-a-day experience. I would go from excitement over its possibilities to existential fear concerning AI’s potential implications to concerns about whether allowing students to farm out planning or proofreading to a machine would cause their abilities to do those things to wither on the vine. In this process, I must have drafted a dozen AI policies for my class and AI posts for this newsletter, but none fit. It wasn’t until a first week…
Continue ReadingGoing Gradeless Five Years In — Part 3
Last week I discussed the second most impactful change I’ve made in my five year journey of revising my grading practices, which was when I opened up discussions about grades—the type that normally just happen among teachers—to students too. Today I want to talk about the most impactful change I’ve ever implemented to help reframe and defang grades in my classroom: Making them malleable. I used to have a policy that grades were fixed. Once rendered, a score was etched in stone barring extenuating circumstances. At the time I told myself that this policy was to teach responsibility, but looking…
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Matthew M. Johnson 