Category Archives: Language

Look and You’ll See: Observation as Writing and Social Practice

Posted on October 13, 2016 by

We began this year by doing observational writing. I took my classes to different places — a community garden, a meadow — and had them write down things they noticed. I asked them to only write down things they had … Continue reading →

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Chinook Jargon

Posted on May 3, 2016 by

Continuing in our explorations of translation, my class has been playing around with Chinook Jargon. Chinook Jargon is the trade language of the Northwest, a pidgin of English, French, and several Salish languages. It was widely spoken through the 1800’s, … Continue reading →

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Translation with Nine Year Olds

Posted on April 18, 2016 by

I’ve been doing poems using words in Spanish or French with my students for several years, and have been trying to figure out a way to do our own translations. They love working with words in other languages, but it’s … Continue reading →

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5 Reasons to Teach Revision

Posted on November 13, 2015 by

As a writer, I can say that most of writing is actually revising. As a teacher, I can say that this idea isn’t how most children think about writing. As both a writer and a teacher, I want to argue … Continue reading →

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