None other than John Dewey, one of the most influential voices in the history of modern education, suggested that art should be the center of education, rather than a “nice embellishment.” Why did Dewey place so much value on the discipline of art? And why did he feel that the artistic process is so essential to learning? In Mind Matters: Teaching for Thinking, authors Dan Kirby and Carol Kuykendall answer these questions. They explain that developing a piece of art requires close observation, attention to detail, sensitivity to pattern and form, and selectivity.

Imagine trying to build a two-story tenement building on a one-story community-theater stage—all on a tight budget in two weeks. That's a problem a friend and I recently faced. First we planned our work: I designed a structure with shortened stories, and my friend turned my pencil sketches into 3D CAD drawings. Then we worked our plan, framing walls and floors, removing low-hanging lights, and installing pool noodles around rafters to keep actors from hitting their heads. When we finished, the director was thrilled.

Writing assessment doesn't exactly have a warm and fuzzy reputation. You probably labor for hours through stacks of essays, marking and grading and wondering if you are "doing it right." Your students meanwhile anxiously wait to see how much red ink their essays will be "bleeding." Such feelings don’t have to define your writing classroom. You can apply a few simple dos and don'ts to develop a classroom culture that views writing assessment with a growth mindset. DO set expectations. Effective writing assessment begins with clear expectations.

When you want your students to practice explanatory writing, present them with one or more of the following prompts, grouped by difficulty. You can also introduce students to the PAST strategy to help them understand what each explanatory prompt is asking them to do. Beginning Explanatory Prompts (Grades 4–5) The following explanatory prompts are meant for students who are moving from paragraph writing to essay writing.  1. Defining Friendship Everyone needs friends. What qualities make someone a good friend? How can you be a friend for someone who needs one?

Whether you are working on a persuasive unit or preparing your students for assessment, these writing prompts can serve as a starting point for building persuasive (argument) essays. Encourage students to use the PAST strategy to analyze the prompts, and share six strategies for writing arguments to help them do their best work. Beginning Persuasive Prompts (Grades 4–5) Share these prompts with students who are beginning to write essays. 1. What Season Is Best? Some people love hot summers at the beach or pool. Others love cold winters with sleds and snowmen.

We feel strongly that certain myths about writing must be dispelled to allow genuine learning to take place. This post identifies and counters eight of the most common myths about writing in middle school. In truth, the myths extend to writing in elementary school, high school, and beyond. Myth 1: Students need a textbook. Textbooks by their very nature are prescriptive. That is, they are designed so that a language arts curriculum is essentially built around them.

“Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again,” William Cullen Bryant exclaimed in his Civil War-era poem, “The Battlefield.” Nearly two centuries later, it feels like truth is yet again fighting an uphill battle. We live at a time when the Oxford Dictionary chooses post-truth as its word of the year. Misleading news stories litter our social-media feeds, and we struggle to distinguish credible sources from bogus ones.

In our media-saturated world, students need to analyze the messages they receive. Previously, editors stood sentry over most messages communicated to the public, sorting fact from opinion from nonsense. No longer. The Internet in general and social media in particular have democratized the production and distribution of information. This change broadens freedom of expression, but with new freedom comes new responsibility. Without editors to sort information, students need to learn these skills for themselves. Sadly, they do not seem to be.

How can we help our students develop writing skills? We can take the rigorous approach, teaching the writing process, academic modes, and integrated grammar. We can also use the creative approach, engaging students' imagination and artistic expression through stories and poems. Unfortunately, the demands of standards-based testing are pushing the creative approach out of many ELA classrooms. Let's not let that happen in ours.

Since its inception in 1999, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to become novelists. Participants sign up at the nonprofit NaNoWriMo.org and track their progress toward writing a 50,000 word novel during November. The organization offers many supports, including encouragement from published novelists. Since Thoughtful Learning has its own published novelist on staff (J. Robert King), we asked him to offer his advice to aspiring writers. Tip 1: It's a marathon, not a sprint. A brilliant idea comes to mind.