So guess what we'll be focusing on?

After cleaning this house and getting my Saturday chores done, I went to school and worked in my classroom for a bit (my home away from home). I'm a music lover, but I'll often put a dvd on to "watch" while I do my work. Today I watched one of the Ministry of Education's videos about Intentional Teaching. 

One of the big ideas from this video was non-fiction writing. This would be writing such as tasks where students do the following: 

• analyze
• compare/contrast
• provide instructions
• describe events

The light-bulb moment was when one of the speakers said that non-fiction writing is the most important kind of writing we can have students do and that when students engage in more non-fiction writing, their performance in other academic areas improves, including math, science, and social studies. This is particularly true for second language learners.It was also interesting to hear non-fiction writing described as "thinking through the end of the pen." 

I did a quick self-check and I'm pleased that we do our fair share of non-fiction writing (RRWEs, Social Studies learning journal, "Explain your thinking", etc.) but I think we can take it up a notch.  

Teaching is never dull, that's for sure. Everyone is always learning. 

Always.