Here is the lesson of the month from Corbett and Dena Harrison. Some great resources shared. Enjoy!

Happy almost-New Year, writing teachers and writing friends,

I'm pleased to say this month's lesson is our 40th lesson of the month!  Thanks to all of you who've supported us in this venture over the years.  We are also less than 1000 members from having 30,000 followers of this online collection of lessons, which is pretty cool.

1.  This month's lesson -- Community of Writers = Neighbors Who Talk -- was inspired by the last few workshops I did for teachers.  A common question was "How do you get your students to talk to each other in a productive way during writing time?"  My answers was 'A Community of Writers,' which is a term I've used since reading Nancie Atwell way back when, but I realized I didn't have a lot at the website that explained how I build that community; this lesson is a short peek into that process, and it will be followed with other peeks in the year to come.  Be sure to notice Dena's new project at the lesson: "Take What You Need" Posters, which come with instructions for how to freely download the first three posters she's made from our newly-established Teachers Pay Teachers store.

2.  Help me in congratulating Michigan 8th grader -- Collin -- whose popcorn bowl metaphor for his writer's notebook and his teacher's Pinterest campaign earned him bragging rights as most popular writer's notebook metaphor in 2015.  You can enjoy all four of the top metaphors (and the poem those metaphors inspired me to write) using this link: http://corbettharrison.com/documents/lesson-docs/Metaphors/Poem-2015.pdf We will sponsor this competition again in September of 2016!

3.  And a shout-out to all those primary writing teachers who are doing such a great job building a foundation of writing skills that those of us teaching higher up the academic "food chain" benefit from.  I couldn't do any of this without the four great feeder schools in my school's zone.  Say THANK YOU to your favorite primary teacher this year by directing them to the website of my former Co-Director of the Northern Nevada Writing Project -- Jodie Black: "Start To Learn"  There, she has complementary model lessons, and she also sells her wonderful resource workbooks (for practically nothing!) that she gives to all participants who take her VERY POPULAR local inservice classes for recertification credit!  I haven't met one primary teacher who has taken either of her two writing inservice classes who didn't tell me it was the best workshop they EVER attended.  Thank you, Jodie, but thank you also to all those primary colleagues who are making writing instruction both fun and skill-focused!

Have a great end of December, all of you!  Keep up the great teaching!

--Corbett & Dena Harrison (Always Write and WritingFix websites)

Visit Writing Lesson of the Month Network at: http://writinglesson.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network