San Marcos Writing Project

09/23/2026

09/23/2026

"Five easy ways to intentionally give students repeated opportunities to hear, understand, and apply rich language in meaningful contexts.
After one of my kindergartners regaled me with his lunch order, I asked him which drink he wanted. “The dairy option,” he responded.
His use of the word dairy wasn’t random—it was the result of intentionally exposing my kindergartners to rich vocabulary in their everyday conversations. During the first few weeks of the school year, instead of “Water or milk?” I consistently asked, “Do you want the water or dairy option?”
Some students continued saying “milk,” others alternated between the two, and some adopted “dairy.” Their word choice wasn’t the goal so much as I wanted them to repeatedly hear and understand different terms that convey the same idea. In doing so, I’m expanding their vocabulary through authentic experiences.
Vocabulary instruction is essential to developing expressive and receptive language, as well as improving reading comprehension and writing skills. Yet in the early elementary years, dedicated vocabulary instruction time is hard to come by amid other curriculum requirements. Teachers might define words during read-alouds or introduce content-specific terms in math, but these brief moments rarely give students enough exposure to use new words confidently in conversation.
An alternative strategy is to build in vocabulary throughout the school day, which gives students repeated opportunities to hear, understand, and apply rich language in meaningful contexts. Rather than memorizing lists of words, students develop vocabulary by experiencing it.
WORD OF THE DAY
Choose a word and introduce it during morning meeting or another daily routine, then intentionally use it throughout the day in a variety of contexts. Action words work especially well because they fit naturally into all sorts of conversations. For example, if the word is predict, you can ask students to predict the weather, or what will happen in a read-aloud, or what they’ll do in specials. Some students will move away from defaulting to “I think…” and start saying, “I predict…”
I often choose words based on what I’ll be teaching students that day. For instance, if we’re introducing a new math concept, I may use a word like strategize. If we’re in the middle of a group project, I may select a term such as synergy. Curricular resources can also be a useful source of inspiration, as many include ideas or directions with higher-level vocabulary.
Additionally, I’ll sometimes introduce a “word of the day” when my class is struggling with a particular social skill. Swapping “kindness” for “empathy,” for instance, is a worthwhile reminder for students.
PLAY THE GAME ‘CATEGORIES’
The classic game Categories is a powerful vocabulary builder. You can play it as a whole group or in small groups by giving students a category and inviting everyone to contribute words that fit. The playful pressure of having to think of something usually elicits creative answers. I especially love how Categories expands my class’s social and emotional vocabulary. My kindergartners went from describing themselves as simply happy or sad to using words like goofy, calm, eager, and tired.
A fun twist on the game is to incorporate a password. Give students a category or even a standalone word, and then as they enter or exit the room, ask them for a password, which can be any word that’s similar to the initial one.
REPHRASE WORDS AND PHRASES"

Five easy ways to intentionally give students repeated opportunities to hear, understand, and apply rich language in meaningful contexts.

09/23/2026

"Try these four writing prompts for the age of AI — though they never mention AI.
As AI becomes ubiquitous and generative AI volunteers to do writing for us, even within the digital platforms we use to craft our own words, we need to engage our students in more thinking about the foundation of their learning and the fundamental reasons for learning to read and write well.
In short, we need them to grapple with existential questions about school.
AI literacy – a term that people in education open as quickly and broadly as a golf umbrella – can incorporate analog activities that never even mention AI. Rather than harping on why caution is important from the front of our classrooms or investing time into better ways to catch cheaters, we need to invite students to pause and give some things a deeper think.
Here are four simple prompts you can use with students to help make that happen. All students need is a pencil, a notebook, and a teacher they trust who really wants to hear what they have to say. (Here’s looking at you, reader!)
Prompt #1: “School is for . . .”’
When a friend and colleague Marcus Luther wrote about his positive experience at this year’s Humans First: Adolescent Education in the Age of AI Conference, he included a web from his notes that seemed especially ripe for transfer into the classroom.
Here’s his notebook image that inspired me:
In the middle of the web, the unfinished sentence “Schools are for . . .” beckons us to think about something foundational: the purpose of school.
For all the time they spend in schools, marching into adulthood, students are seldom asked to think about why they are there.
Recently, we read Rumi’s “Two Kinds of Intelligence,” and used a “Sketch This Poem” activity, featured in my book Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Student Writing in All Genres, to bring the main ideas of Rumi’s 13th century meditation on intelligence to life. We took a quick gallery walk to gather additional thinking from each other’s work.
Then I said, “Conceptions and definitions of intelligence have changed a lot since Rumi was alive . . . and they are changing again in your lifetime as humans develop and interact with artificial intelligence. If we are going to continue to be educated humans in this new era, we need to think about what school is for in the first place. How many ways could you finish this sentence? ‘School is for . . .’”
Here is a student notebook example:

In conclusion I said, “I have an open, curious mindset about AI. But one thing is certain: We must be honest with ourselves about any particular use of AI. Does it help push or amplify our thinking and achieve one of these purposes, or avoid thinking and undercut one of these purposes we’ve brainstormed? To me, that makes a pretty good compass about whether the use of AI for any task will be harmful or helpful.”
Prompt #2: “What finished product does K-12 education create?”
First, I know I first heard this question in a podcast, but searching to find it again, I cannot figure out which one! It was directed at teachers, but I remember instantly thinking, “Why not pitch this one to students?”
If the product of a K-12 education is a GPA or even a diploma, then cheating with AI becomes tempting, even advantageous.
But what I hope students can realize during a paragraph-long writing sprint about this question is that the product of a K-12 education is them, the adult human being who throws a cap at graduation and goes on to use their freedom productively and wisely.
If the intended product is productive and wise humans, then the goal is also a productive and wise society of humans, an interwoven fabric of relationships that holds strong. “We are each other’s/ harvest:/ we are each other’s/ business:/ we are each other’s/ magnitude and bond,” another early-in-the-year Poem of the Day, “Paul Robeson” by Gwendolyn Brooks, reminds us."

https://declarativeimperative.substack.com/p/try-these-four-writing-prompts-for

09/23/2026

" Why, according to a Times critic, does the story of “The Odyssey” have something for everyone?
Did you see “The Odyssey” this summer? What did you think of the film? What were your favorite parts? Who were your favorite characters? What are some of the messages you took away from it?
Did watching the movie make you want to go to the source material and read, or listen to, the 2,800-year-old poem? If not, maybe a Times essay can help! Here, the critic A.O. Scott explains why the world’s most famous epic has something for every reader:
It’s an amazing story. Really, it’s all the stories. The “Odyssey” is a venerable literary masterpiece, but in its time the poem was also popular entertainment, performed aloud by virtuosos known as rhapsodes. (One of these original rappers may or may not have been named Homer.) What kept their listeners enthralled was variety: This epic is full of comedy, pathos, adventure and suspense.
He quotes the critic and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn who says, “‘The Odyssey’ bequeathed to the West entire genres.” (A genre is a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form or content.)
• What parts do you remember from the movie that could put “The Odyssey” in the “action and adventure” genre? What parts were science fiction or fantasy? Did you notice a spooky ghost story? What about romance? Did any aspect of the film offer a coming-of-age story?
• What does it mean to call a story an “epic”? How is “The Odyssey” epic? What other works — whether movies, books, songs, poems, or anything else — would you put in this category? Why do you think epics have appealed to audiences since ancient times? Would you like it if more were included in your school’s curriculum?
If you’d like to go further:"

Why, according to a Times critic, does the story of “The Odyssey” have something for everyone?

09/23/2026

"The Context
I remember the level of excitement I felt when I moved from teaching Kindergarten to Third Grade. I had never taught older students, and I came in eager to write alongside children and discover new books with them. I also knew I’d be learning so much about students’ abilities, ways of thinking, gathering and expressing ideas, as well as the depth I’d experience through conversations with 8- and 9-year-olds.
Recently, I got to relive that joy while talking with new teachers in Grades 4 and 5 about reading notebooks. We chatted about different practices students could learn to make their reading visible through writing, and the importance of introducing them gradually, starting with “Stop & Jot.”
Although the practice may feel familiar, it’s worth taking time with new teachers to explore how readers can pause, capture a quick thought on a sticky note, and then return to their reading. That’s my goal with this post.
Why It Matters
In the upper grades, making reading visible is vital. Students’ reading comprehension depends on their ability to monitor meaning, connect ideas and knowledge, and identify what’s important in a text. Brief, purposeful jots make their thinking visible and give students something concrete to revisit later, either in a discussion or in longer writing.
Writing is a powerful way to develop comprehension and gives teachers valuable insight into how students work through texts. I have often seen that when students struggle to talk about books, jotting and eventually writing at greater length provide another window into their understanding.
How It Works
When I taught Grade 3, I introduced the practice of jotting early in the year. The more concrete we can make this for students, the more accessible and motivating it will be. The goal is not to encourage too many interruptions to independent reading, but to provide a “pit stop” to catch emerging thoughts that will most likely vanish if we try to collect them after finishing the book.
When students are new to this practice, we provide examples of when it’s worth pausing and writing a quick jot. In fiction, these points might include when a new character is introduced, when something seems confusing, when an event reminds the reader of something that happened earlier, or when a prediction the reader has made is confirmed or needs to be revised.
It’s worth noting that teachers model this complex work during interactive read-alouds. Alongside their reading goals, teachers think aloud and rehearse ideas orally, helping students hear how they could write about their thinking in their own books. Teachers might show jots they write themselves or write jots in collaboration with students.
Students are encouraged to collect jots until they finish the book. Then, we teach them how to sort and study all their jots, asking themselves, “Which jots are worth saying more about?” “Which jots make me feel like I have more to say?” or “What questions do I still have?” They can disregard any jots that don’t pass that filter. Those selected jots are then studied with a reading partner, club, or teacher to consider what else could be said or how the idea could be expanded. That’s when the jots join the notebook.
Readers tape the jot to the top center of a new page and begin rehearsing and writing about emerging ideas they might have about that part of the book. These are some questions we offer students to support that writing:"

New to teaching writing about reading—or supporting someone who is? This post offers a concrete way to introduce jotting without turning it into an interruption or another task students complete si…