Two Writing Teachers Podcast
Since 2007, Two Writing Teachers has been a vibrant community of reflective writers. We're excited to take our passion for teaching writing to new heights in the second season of our podcast. Join us as we explore ways to create, lead, and sustain joyful and productive writing workshops, empowering educators to help their students become competent, brave, and confident writers. Let's make writing instruction engaging and rewarding for everyone involved!
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Episodes
109 episodes
Your Small Group Instruction, Your Records: A Tip for Tomorrow From Stacey
This week, Stacey chats about the critical role of record-keeping in small-group instruction within the writing workshop. The episode highlights five key reasons why educators should prioritize record keeping. We’ll explore effective record-kee...
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12:26
Celebrating Student Writers: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
This week, we explore the transformative power of writing celebrations in elementary classrooms. Discover how these joyful events showcase student work, nurture young writers' identities, strengthen classroom communities, and foster a sense of ...
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34:13
Leverage Instructional Minutes: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
Melanie shares three practical strategies for maximizing classroom time. She emphasizes managing transition times to maintain student engagement and minimize downtime. In addition, she suggests creating a collection of valuable and doable activ...
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6:56
Build Executive Functioning with Time Management Techniques: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
Stacey explores the vital executive functioning skill of time management as it applies to the writing workshop. She identifies common challenges students face, from grasping time concepts to meeting deadlines, and offers practical strategies to...
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6:33
Tackling Tricky Topics: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
We delve into the challenging subjects that often arise in elementary school writing workshops, ranging from bodily functions and violence to mental health issues. We explore the non-negotiable aspects of topic choice and discuss establishing c...
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37:20
Sentence Structure for Young Writers: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
Writing complete sentences is tricky for most elementary school students. This week's Tip for Tomorrow provides concrete ways to make sentence construction sticky for students. From a visible, tactile teaching method to progressions of examples...
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7:26
Prepping for Fall Conferences: A Conversation with a Colleague
Leah Thomas, a co-author of the Two Writing Teachers Blog, chats with Melanie to reflect on her recent experiences with parent-teacher conferences, discussing the challenges and rewards of connecting with families. She shares effective note-tak...
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36:14
Energizing Editing: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
In this podcast episode, Melanie will share creative strategies to make the editing process engaging for students. Discover how to infuse fun into editing by using gamification techniques and various tools. You will also learn how to integrate ...
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7:21
Refine Your Writing Conferences: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
Discover the art of building meaningful writer-to-writer relationships and managing time effectively in brief, impactful sessions. The discussion delves into the importance of individualized focus, highlighting how concentrating on a single...
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35:56
Five Tangible Tools to Transform Writers: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
In our 100th episode, Stacey explores the power of tangible artifacts in writing conferences. She discusses five essential tools to enhance the writer-to-writer relationship: mentor texts, demonstration texts, mini-charts, personalized word...
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8:22
Energizing a Writing Unit: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
Melanie shares four ways to reenergize student writers whose enthusiasm and stamina dwindle during more extended writing units. Her ideas are sure to reinvigorate students in engaging and meaningful ways. Go Deeper:
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9:34
Help K-8 Students with Executive Functioning Needs: A Conversation with a Colleague
This episode features Betsy Hubbard, an experienced educator and co-author at Two Writing Teachers. The discussion explores the critical role of executive functioning skills in writing and how deficits in these areas can impact students' perfor...
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37:32
The Power of Oral Language: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
In this week's episode, Melanie shares six innovative strategies for using verbal rehearsal to empower young writers. She discusses techniques such as purposeful storytelling, visual cue cards, and fostering student collaborative partnerships. ...
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8:45
Build Writing Confidence with the "Ready, Do, Done" Model: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
In this episode, Stacey explores the "Ready, Do, Done" model by Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen to help students with executive functioning challenges become confident writers. She discusses the importance of setting clear intentions and gather...
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7:33
Get to Know Writers: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
This episode delves into the importance of understanding students as writers and its benefits to educators and learners. We explore how this knowledge fosters a stronger classroom community and informs more tailored instruction. Tried-and-true ...
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44:22
Exploring Best Practices and Research in Writing Instruction: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
It's the final episode of season two, so we're discussing some of the best practices for writing instruction. We cover the importance of a thriving writing community and the writing process, and we explore the role of oral language in boosting ...
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39:02
Plan Your Summer Learning: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
Melanie explores critical strategies to help you plan for your summer learning. Discover practical tips for organizing your classroom, finding or forming a study group, curating mentor texts, and engaging in personal writing. You'll leave this ...
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8:14
Co-create Writing Goals: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
Stacey explores the importance of co-creating goals with students to help them grow as writers. She discusses how collaboration during goal-setting enhances students' ownership, motivation, and personalized learning. It also allows for individu...
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6:09
Developing Paragraph Structure: A Tip For Tomorrow from Melanie
In this episode, Melanie guides you through the art of crafting concise and well-structured paragraphs that are easy to follow and understand. With her expert tips on oral rehearsal and the use of sentence frames, she empowers young writers to ...
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9:21
Unlock Strategies for Task Initiation: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
Task initiation is one key to student success, particularly in the context of writing instruction. The episode highlights some students' challenges with executive functioning skills and how they struggle to begin tasks efficiently. The host pro...
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12:48
Addressing Perfectionism in Writing Instruction: A Conversation with a Colleague
In today’s Conversation with a Colleague, Stacey chats with Lainie Levin, a gifted interventionist and coach, about helping learners conquer perfectionism. Lainie unveils the manifestations of perfectionism in students, particularly during writ...
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43:59
Building Awareness of Sentence Structure: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
Make sentence structure more straightforward for students with Melanie's intentional activities in this episode. Melanie shares ways she helps students understand the definition of sentences, create sentences with phrases and pictures, and comb...
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7:21
Capture Students' Progress with End-of-Year Letters: A Tip for Tomorrow from Stacey
Explore the origin and significance of end-of-year reflection letters in this week’s episode. Stacey highlights the unique nature of these letters, which go beyond self-evaluations of academics and instead focus on students reflecting on their ...
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10:14
Explore the Potential of Student-Facing AI Tools: A Digging Deeper Dialogue
We explore the vast potential of student-facing AI tools. Join us as we delve into the benefits of tools like Co:Writer Universal, EverWrite, Grammarly, Read&Write, and Speechify. Discover how these cutting-edge tools revolutionize students...
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40:56
Bring Checklists to Life: A Tip for Tomorrow from Melanie
It is helpful to create checklists that are accessible to students so they are manageable, digestible, and possible for students to utilize. In this tip, Melanie shares ways to help students chunk checklists, think with intention, and digitize ...
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8:22