Writing everyday, even just 15 minutes, can change your perspective on life. The document provides tips for daily writing such as morning pages, writing prompts, blogging, and writing about your classroom. It encourages setting writing goals and offers the example of researching questions or topics from your own classroom as a focus for regular writing.

1. YOUR DAILY WRITE
Why writing everyday—essentially upping the
quantity of words you write—can change how you
feel about your life.

3. YOUR
WRITING
Take 15 minutes to write about:
• when you like writing
• what you write
• what you wish you wrote
• where you write
• how often you write

4. WAYS TO GET YOURSELF
WRITING
• Morning Pages (Julia Cameron)
• First line generator: http://writingexercises.co.uk/firstlinegenerator.php
• One sentence Journal
• Teachers Write!
• Start a blog
• Slice of Life: Two Writing Teachers blog
• Find a piece of writing that is like what you’d like to write and re-type it on
your computer.
• Write about your classroom
• Pitch a magazine so that you have a deadline and topic

5. MORNING PAGES
• Open your laptop or take
out paper and a pen.
• Write for 20 minutes
without stopping.
• Get everything out, don’t
worry if it is negative or
trivial. It’s about getting it
all out.

6. FIRST LINE GENERATOR
WRITINGEXERCISES.CO.UK/FIRSTLINEGENERATOR.PH
P
Generate a line. Write in any form you want.
non-fiction
fiction
poetry

8. WRITE ONE SENTENCE
ABOUT WHAT YOU’VE
LEARNED SO FAR

10. START YOUR OWN
BLOG
http://moranreflections.blogspot.

11. SLICE OF LIFE WRITING
HTTPS://TWOWRITINGTEACHERS.WORDPRESS.CO
M
A storytelling technique that offers
insight into an ordinary person’s
life.
A story about a small segment of
one’s day, a poem that tells about a
small moment in time, a collection
of words and photos that describe a
scenario.

12. When I met my husband, he was not a reader. People were shocked that I could be so
in love with someone who didn't read. What would we talk about? How could we
understand each other?
I'll never forget the moment one evening after having read to the kids when he said,
"I wonder if I'd be different if someone had read to me like that."
Without skipping a beat I said, "I think you can find out. I think if you read the books
you could have read, you can relive that time and change with each book."
The next night I gifted him with a stack of books many by Gary Paulson, an author I
knew he would have loved as a 10 year old. He read each one like a drowning person
gasps at air. I couldn't talk to him or get him to do anything else. He would
simultaneously put one book down and pick up the next.
The way he talked changed. He discussed character action and traits as evidence of
his thinking. He started asking bookstore owners to help him locate books that were
like this or that. He talked about plot and writing qualities as someone who'd been
reading all his life. The tipping point came when he got up from a dinner party at our
house to pull books down that he thought our guests might enjoy. He shared his
loves.
It is possible to get back what you thought you lost. I've witnessed it.
A Slice of Life

13. Stop and
write a topic
Now write your slice of
life for 30 minutes.

14. USING A MENTOR TEXT
• Find a piece of something you love—wish you had written—want
to write
• Open up a doc and re-write it
• Print it and study how it looks on the page
• Deconstruct it and identify what it’s got
• Copy the format for your own piece

15. WRITE ABOUT YOUR
CLASSROOM
• Teachers know more than anyone else what
goes in a classroom. They know what is
effective. They know how to motivate
children.
• But they aren’t writing about it
• Why?

16. Teacher research is practical, action-based
research. It enables educators to follow their
interests and their needs as they investigate what
they and their students do.
NEA - Teacher Research Could Change Your
Practice
www.nea.org/tools/17289.htm

17. • What are you curious about in your classroom?
• What puzzles you in your classroom?
• What problems do you want to solve in your classroom?
• What seems most or least successful about your teaching?
Research
Questions

18. Research Journal
entries
• Descriptions of events and interactions in the classroom
• Quotations, phrases, conversations
• Surprising, confusing events or statements
• Reflections on observations, tentative theories, assumptions
• Thoughts about the research process — what’s working, what
isn’t
• Ideas about teaching

19. WHAT COULD YOU
RESEARCH?
Has it been written about recently?

20. SETTING
WRITING
GOALS
Ben Franklin’s Schedule

21. SET A WRITING GOAL YOU
CAN ACHIEVE BEFORE
JANUARY 1, 2016• Specific: I will write every day
• Measurable: Three chapters of my early
chapter book
• Achievable: I will need to write 2-3 pages per
week
• Relevant: This is in line with what I do
• Timebound: By January 1, 2016

22. MY LAST MET GOAL
I challenged myself to get some of my teacher
beliefs published. Then I found an outlet and

23. WHAT WILL YOUR NEXT
GOAL BE?