Professional Development day...
Super excited to be off to the city today for a school PD. I'm going to be participating in a workshop on creative writing which I think will be awesome! I have started a program at my school called Word Vomit where we are encouraging the students to write down whatever they think and then concentrate on making it better. The biggest challenge for kids today is the art of drafting and not getting it perfect the first time. I have so many students who are afraid to write as they can't get started because they don't have the perfect opening line. This concept of having to be perfect I think comes from the use of technology. I think we have always felt that the 'typed' version is the final version. As such students don't edit or rewrite what they have already typed. I have tried to implement the rule that nobody gets an iPad until they have written a draft. Most of the time it works- some of the time I end up with an argument!! Students will maintain