San Marcos Writing Project

Made up words for August by Morgan Harper Nichols:

Merriam Webster Time Travel feature – which words are same age as you?

"When was a word first used in print? You may be surprised! Enter a date below to see the words first recorded on that year. To learn more about First Known Use dates, click here."

Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster When was a word first used in print? You may be surprised! Choose a year, and we'll show you the words that come from that date.

" Students with dyslexia and other language-based learning difficulties can benefit greatly from activities that integrate oral language.
As a dyslexia therapist working with students in kindergarten through second grade, I know that many of my students have strong ideas but struggle to generate complete, grammatically correct sentences independently.
Young students, particularly those with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences, lack opportunities to organize those ideas into language. This realization transformed the way I approached grammar instruction in my classroom.
With limited time during intervention sessions, I initially relied on grammar worksheets to teach sentence structure. Although students could complete the isolated exercises, they rarely transferred those skills to their oral language or writing.
I realized that grammar needed to be taught within authentic contexts rather than as disconnected exercises. I needed an activity that would naturally integrate oral language, grammar, reading comprehension, and writing into a single instructional approach.
I found the answer in wordless picture books. Without text to guide the story, wordless picture books are particularly powerful because they foster oral language development, which serves as the foundation for literacy in the early grades. Oral language supports vocabulary, reading comprehension, and written expression—and learning to generate complete sentences is a critical part of that development.
As students describe characters, actions, and events, they practice organizing their thoughts, applying grammatical structures, expanding vocabulary, and communicating ideas with clarity. These oral language experiences naturally transfer to reading and writing because students who can confidently say a complete sentence are better prepared to read, comprehend, and write one.
And the best part: The lesson design and implementation is simple.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Select a picture book with no (or only a few) words, and pictures that are large and can be seen by the students. The pictures should clearly tell a grade-appropriate story. Discuss only one page each day.
Before you start the activity, gather materials such as part of speech cards (displayed in a pocket chart for referencing), chart paper, sentence strips, students’ writing journals and pencils, markers, and tape to cover any writing errors.
Hold the book as you would when reading aloud to the class. Sit students close by so they can see the book easily. Read the title and introduce the author and illustrator of the book to students. Ask for predictions about the story.
Turn to the first page and ask students to describe what is happening. Select one sentence shared by a student and write it exactly as it was stated on a dry-erase board or chart paper so everyone can see.
Here’s a sample of what the exchange might sound like, along with what actions the teacher might take."

Teaching Grammar With Wordless Picture Books Students with dyslexia and other language-based learning difficulties can benefit greatly from activities that integrate oral language.

"My first first day of school, as you probably know, did not go well. Unless you count laying on the floor of my office crying at the end of the day “going well.” It was the first time I ever realized you could be thinking one thing while saying something completely different. “Take a look at the syllabus,” said my mouth, while my brain said, OH NO, they hate this! They’re looking at the clock! And you have nothing else planned! And you have to do this with three more classes! Since then, “going over the syllabus” is not in my first day playbook. Nope, the last thing I want on day one is to stand in front of the class and lecture about our course texts, my expectations, and their upcoming units. So what will I be doing instead, in my first year back in the classroom in a bit? That’s what today’s podcast is all about.

Establishing Connection
I’ll be at my door as kids come in, saying good morning and welcoming them to the space. I’ll have a gentle playlist going and my classroom library will be looking as sparkly and appealing as I can possibly make it.
I’ll definitely be doing an attendance question on day one as I figure out names and name pronunciations. Probably I’ll start with a goofy one like waffle fries or curly fries, donuts or bagels, or dog person or cat person? The goal is just to introduce this little community builder, get attendance taken, and write down how to pronounce names.
Speaking of names, it’s really important to me to get them right as fast as I can. Especially the names that are more unfamiliar to me. I’ve had a lot of kids tell me I can just pronounce their names wrong since it’s easier for me that way, a line they’ve obviously come up with as they’ve heard many people at school struggle with their names. And I always tell them I’d really like to learn to say it correctly if they’d be willing to help me. It can be tough for me with names that have a sound or intonation that I’m not familiar with in English, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try and try hard.
Name Tents
Next, I’ll spend ten minutes working on name tents with the group. I love these to help us all memorize names right away, but I also love having them as a resource throughout the year for changing up the seating, putting kids into groups that I believe will work, and leaving for subs. When the kids have each made their name tent, I’ll dash around to take a picture of each student holding up theirs, so I can practice at home that first night.
Pass out the Syllabus
At this point, I’ll pass out the syllabus, which I’ll be making soon using one of my syllabus templates so it doesn’t take long. I’ll be including a letter to parents this year about our choice reading program, inspired by the letters I’ve heard about from many other folks, including Penny Kittle. We will spend about 90 seconds looking at the syllabus, then I’ll ask them to take it home and have their parents look over it with them and sign that they read the letter about our choice reading program.
Harkness™ Introduction: The Community Story
Next, I’ll introduce the idea of student-led discussion and create a list of discussion norms with a meaningful activity I learned at the Exeter Humanities Institute. I’ll hand a beanbag to a student and ask them to start a story in which some character (human or not) leaves home on a journey. I’ll explain that they should tell the story for thirty seconds or so, then pass the beanbag to the next person who will continue the story, then the next person and the next, until the last person brings the character back home. Then there will be one final toss, to a person who will recount the whole story, getting help from the group at any time if they need it.
The stories that come out of this activity never fail to amaze me. They are wide-ranging, unique, weird, funny, fun. After the whole story is recounted, I have the last person toss me the beanbag, and I explain how our collective story represents the discussions we will have during the year. I talk about how I could never have come up with a story like that by myself, and how our class discussions will be much richer with all of us contributing than they could ever be if I just lectured to them. Then, together, we come up with an anchor chart of what makes for a good discussion. A student acts as scribe, jotting down what we come up with."

What I'll be Doing on the First Day of School - Spark Creativity Let's talk PLANS for the first day of school. Here's how I'll break down my block to create interest, establish norms, and start to build routines for a 9th grade ELA class.

"There are many ways people are silenced. Once, I overcorrected a student, pointing out all his errors and talking them through one by one. My clumsy attempt to teach him everything at once didn’t push him to become a better writer: I pushed him to silence. He withdrew his words for fear of being wrong. During family gatherings or at large dinner parties with friends, I’ve observed the way the loudest voices tend to reign, telling and retelling their stories. I’ve watched as my quiet children and shy friends sit back, silent, removing themselves from the conversation because no one makes space for their voices. I’ve witnessed the subtle silencing in meetings when some people’s ideas are lifted up and others ignored. I noticed it when our students are told to hush because their voices or laughter are too loud, out of place in the hallowed rooms of a museum, a hallway, a classroom. Some of us, especially people from traditionally marginalized groups and women, are taught to take up less space from the time we were children.
Before launching the politics of language or language and colonization unit, Dylan Leeman, a wonderful teacher who has allowed me to share his classroom, and I wanted students to think about whose voices get heard, whose voices are viewed as correct, and whose voices are herded, tamed, trimmed, corrected, shamed, and silenced. Because we introduce this narrative to frame a unit on the hierarchies of language, we used the word “voice,” but the larger frame is the way some people’s languages, bodies, lives get edited, surveilled, praised, or shamed more than others. By leaning into their memories of silencing, we attempt to raise consciousness about race, gender, voice, language, and privilege.
Finding Our Stories and Building Writing
I kicked off this narrative lesson by sharing a story I wrote about the time when I lost my voice during my freshman year of high school. My teacher — I will call her Mrs. B — asked me to stand and pronounce words and conjugate verbs as a model of how students should not speak. Then she asked another student — I will call her Sarah — to stand and correctly pronounce the words and conjugate the verbs. To be honest, I can’t recall much of the story beyond those few sentences. But the shame Mrs. B bestowed on me that day followed me around for years. As I wrote in my narrative:
Mrs. B’s memory remains dusted, clean, ready to scorch me when I stand in front of an audience to give a talk or speak on a radio program. She still stalks me when I least expect it — at a dinner party with well-educated acquaintances I want to impress, and I wonder if my tongue will slip back to 9th grade. She didn’t teach me to conjugate verbs or correctly pronounce words. No, Mrs. B taught me shame. She taught me to be silent for fear of making a mistake when I spoke.
I end the story by introducing how I overcame that fear through knowledge:
Years later, when I studied linguistics in college and on my own as a teacher, I learned that many of my grammar usage and pronunciation “errors” came from my immigrant parents’ translations from their German and Norwegian languages into English. I discovered the many ways colonizers stole languages and marked them inferior.
After I read my piece to the class, I introduced the assignment: Write about a time when you lost or found your voice. This prompt sparked immediate anecdotes at Jefferson High School where students I taught for decades came from diverse linguistic backgrounds. They spoke of the pain of losing their home language and not being able to communicate with elders at family reunions or being shy to speak in class because students made fun of their pronunciation. The students in the sophomore class I co-teach with Dylan Leeman did not share those experiences. It took a while to locate their stories, but once they did, they wrote powerful, diverse pieces.
To move them toward their stories, Dylan and I put a chart on the board with two lists: Times I found my voice and times I lost my voice. My finding list focused on language: I learned to love writing in Ms. Carr’s junior English class; I learned how to harness arguments in Mrs. Johanson’s debate class; and I published my writing in academic journals and literary magazines. Under the “lost my voice” column, I noted Mrs. B’s class and the absence of women in literature and history when I was in school. This curricular silence made me question my place in the world and by including this topic, I hoped students would understand the ways exclusion from the curriculum, history, employment opportunities, social media, and leadership roles are also methods of silencing. Dylan, a powerful storyteller, shared his two lists as well.
Students struggled to find stories. Their charts were mostly empty. Dylan and I spun through the room like tumbleweeds, attempting to elicit ideas, hoping to find a few students who might share their brainstormed lists. Because Dylan’s and my topics focused mostly on language, students couldn’t land their narratives. In conversation with table groups, we realized that if we broadened the prompt, students found a way into their stories. “Think about times you witnessed someone being silenced. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was your sister, cousin, best friend.” Dylan and I traded suggestions across the room to elicit more responses. “Silencing doesn’t just happen with language. It can be who gets called on in class and who doesn’t. It can be who teachers, coaches, and parents choose to put in the spotlight and who is in the shadow. It can be who gets called out for inappropriate behavior and who doesn’t. Often, even awards that appear to be earned can be products of inherited privilege.” The process of locating wisps of memories and winding them into a coherent piece is messy and can feel like failure until I remember that this is often the way teaching and writing start. I learn and relearn the lesson that prompts need to be broad enough for students to find connections in their lives.
The following class period, students read their ideas/topics with their table groups. Dylan and I encouraged students to share with the whole class, especially when we thought others might strike a similar vein. Degan’s story, for example, was about a time he worked the scoreboard at a basketball game and lost focus. The parents who filled the bleachers yelled at him. He wanted to pull his hoodie up and slink out of the gym. This sparked ideas for Tristan, Max, Liv, and others about times when a single error caused an avalanche of criticism that threatened to define them. By bringing to light these stories that seem private — supposedly a result of a character flaw or personal defect — we can examine the ways that invisible privilege works. Mrs. B’s correction of my language was both personal and political. She asserted the power of her position — an English teacher — to correct and humiliate me for my home language, instead of teaching me that language is rooted in a system that privileges those who make the rules, those for whom Standard English is their home language.
Once everyone had at least one item in their columns, I said: “Select an idea from your list to write about. If it doesn’t go anywhere, choose a new item. Sometimes when I’m writing, new memories emerge. Open your notebooks and write one or two sentences telling the story as a summary.” I turned and wrote on the board “My 9th-grade English teacher humiliated me for the way I talk in front of the class.” The purpose of this step is to clarify the story for the student. Throughout my teaching career students have complained that they can’t remember the details, so I short-circuited that argument in my narrative. “Look,” I say. “My high school freshman year was 1965. I don’t remember the details. Here’s what I know: My English teacher humiliated me for talking wrong. From there I can include some details based on what I remember of high school. I can add other details. I can embellish where I don’t know. There’s no fact-check on this, Mr. Leeman and I are interested in the big idea of the story of finding or losing yourself in a moment, a story that sticks with you. You get to add the details you remember and invent the ones you don’t.”
To move students into their writing, Dylan and I returned to a strategy we’d learned from elementary teachers in the Oregon Writing Project: a story diagram. I shared my diagram on a slideshow with a bubble in the middle with my statement: Mrs. B humiliated me for the way I spoke. I created small bubbles above it with the characters in my story: Mrs. B and Sarah. Radiating out from that I included some details about them: Sarah wore matching pleated skirts and sweaters and penny loafers. Mrs. B was tiny and hunched over and old. I included the name of the high school as the setting. In another bubble, I wrote “I felt humiliated, not smart, I started monitoring the way I talked. Silenced.” My final bubble read “I regained my voice and power when I learned about the politics of language in college.”
After going over my slide, Dylan instructed students: “Create a diagram of your story. What’s the one-sentence summary? Who are the characters in your story? What do you remember about them? Where did it take place? How did this incident make you feel? How did you gain or lose power? What lesson about power and privilege can you take away from this incident?”
The art of teaching social justice narrative writing means layering lessons instead of merely giving an assignment and hoping students will write. With our next layer, Dylan and I provided students with strategies to open their piece: Character description, setting description, action. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but instead offers an invitation to play, to see the narrative as a story in progress, and that revision can happen even in the first moments of construction.
To show how to start with a character, I shared my description of Mrs. B. Partly, we used my model because it demonstrates my fuzzy memory, and how the use of the word “maybe” allows for the possibility that I’m wrong, again encouraging students to loosen their hold on needing to get every detail accurate:
My memory is that she was tiny and stooped, dressed in black with grey hair pulled into a tight bun, but memory is tricky. I admit she resembles the wooden witch Halloween decorations I set out with my grandson Mateo this morning. Maybe she wasn’t evil. Maybe she wasn’t small. Maybe she even wore the colors of the rainbow.
After each model opening, we gave students time to write and share with tablemates, then encouraged them to nominate someone from their table to read their start with the class. “These are drafts,” we told them. “Try different styles. Listen to your tablemates. If you find someone’s opening that you love, figure out what they did and try that.”
Then we left them alone to write the draft. “Just get it down. We will revise the story later. Gather as many details as you can but focus on telling the story. It doesn’t matter where you start. Writing can be fixed.” Students wrote their drafts in their notebooks first instead of on a computer. Handwriting allows students to move more slowly, for details to arise, for mistakes to happen without the quick delete button of the computer.
Embroidering the Narrative
The idea of embroidering a narrative came from years of encountering students’ grumblings that their memories can’t capture enough detail for a full story or that their piece is just one moment in time and they’re not sure how to make it bigger, longer. Their pushback is legitimate. I face the same dilemmas when I write, so Dylan and I returned to literature to explore how writers solve this problem and teach students the tools that writers use to expand their stories. A critical classroom doesn’t assume all students understand how to write, instead it unravels the mystery of a genre and helps students navigate through the process.
Interior Monologue
Dylan and I encountered the usual disparity between those still writing the first draft, those who needed to revise, and those who considered themselves done. Wherever students are, they benefit from a craft lesson in writing that returns them to their draft. We began with a lesson on adding interior monologues, the imagined thoughts and feelings of a character, because this strategy helps them access their emotions at the time of the event. We used a section of Renée Watson’s novel Piecing Me Together. In this segment of the novel, Watson demonstrates the kinds of judgments people make based on race, class, language, clothes, gender, the side of town you live on. We chose this piece to continue to broaden the idea of the way other people’s judgments about our lives add up.
Watson offers a model for how to add more background details about the character: what they eat, drink, dream. Watson includes elements from her character’s life to broaden the reader’s understanding: food stamps, guns, boys. I began this layer of writing by saying: “A narrative is and isn’t about you. Think about Watson’s lists and consider adding one to your narrative. You might use the line What people get wrong about me . . . What people get right about me . . . or I am the one who. . . . This can be used to explore you as a character in the story or to explore another character in the story.”

Student Voices Lost, Stolen, and Found Students write personal narratives about feeling silenced and making themselves heard.

Homer translator Emily Wilson’s acidic review of the movie got so much attention it crashed the London Review of Books website. She, ahem, didn’t care for the movie:

"Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no s*x scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...