This is the point in the year when AP teachers look at the calendar and panic a little, particularly if our students are still freezing when they see the prompt or defaulting to formulaic, shallow essays. We teach students five-paragraph essays and encourage them to hunt for devices, which leads students to focus on what…
Zuihitsu is a Japanese poetry form that translates roughly to “running brush.” The idea behind a zuihitsu is to follow your “brush,” or pen, and see where it takes you. Zuihitsu can include short or long lines (think Walt Whitman). They may include snippets of dialog or stories. They rely on juxtaposition, fragments, and even…
A few years ago, I had the great fortune to be able to attend Kenyon College’s Writing Workshop for Teachers. My instructor was Dr. Emily Moore, who teaches at Stuyvesant High School in New York. She shared a writing assignment with us that Stuyvesant English teachers use. It’s a form of writing that marries the…
I set my summer professional goal to ramp up writing instruction. It’s an area in which I feel a level of competence and confidence, but I am always looking for ways to improve. I asked Twitter for suggestions. I’m embedding the tweet here so you can follow the suggestions if you like. https://twitter.com/danamhuff/status/1013627319288848385 Later, this…
I have been using one of the writing ideas I learned at Kenyon last summer with my juniors. Watching my students write last week prompted me to tweet this comment: https://twitter.com/danamhuff/status/685172333263196160 For some reason, the exercise generated a different feeling in the room, and it was a happy moment for me, sitting and looking around…
