Beyond the Paragraph: Teaching Writing in Middle School with Structure

I'm breaking down writing stamina — what it actually is, why it's the missing piece in most writing instruction, and the simple daily habits that build it.Stamina isn't just "writing for a long time." It's the mental and emotional resilience to push through hard, long-term work without quitting — and it's a skill we can teach. Here's how I build it with my students in grades 3–8:✏️ Daily 3-a-day warm-ups — sentence combining (the most research-backed way to teach grammar that sticks), a quick grammar/test-prep question, and a short quick-write scene ✏️ Weekly structured writing workshops — where students set line goals, track personal records, and beat them week over week ✏️ Quantity before quality — why getting words on the page first is the key to unlocking revision laterIf your students freeze up, stall out, or "don't know what to write," this is where to start.🔗 Full-year writing curriculum is now available for grades 3–8 — check out your grade level here: [LINK] 🎓 New to the Structured Writers Workshop? Take the free crash course: [LINK]Thoughts? Questions? Send me a text message!➡️ Learn more about the FULL Structured Writing training PD📆 Grab my yearlong writing planner for free (it includes my eBook!)🎥 Watch the teaching strategies in action on YouTube📝 Read the latest blog posts for writing tips & ideas HAVE A QUESTION? Email me at [email protected]

Can you teach writing well even if you feel like you're "not a writing person"? Yes. And in this 5-Minute Flash Training, I want to take that worry off your shoulders, whether you're a classroom ELA teacher or a homeschool parent.You don't need 250 strategies or an award on your shelf. You need to get kids writing daily, build their confidence and stamina, teach the six skills in a deliberate order (voice, hooks, sentence complexity, figurative language, vivid imagery, and show-don't-tell), add claim-evidence-reasoning, and stack it all into essays. When you understand how those pieces connect, your confidence as the teacher follows, and your students feel it too.New to the Structured Writing method? Take the free crash course.The full-year writing and grammar curriculum for grades 3 through 8 is now complete. Thoughts? Questions? Send me a text message!➡️ Learn more about the FULL Structured Writing training PD📆 Grab my yearlong writing planner for free (it includes my eBook!)🎥 Watch the teaching strategies in action on YouTube📝 Read the latest blog posts for writing tips & ideas HAVE A QUESTION? Email me at [email protected]

How do I get students to actually want to write? It's the question every ELA teacher and homeschool parent runs into, and it's where I start this brand-new 5-Minute Flash Training series for summer.Here's the heart of it: most writing instruction assigns writing instead of teaching it. We hand kids the finished cake and say "now you make one." In this quick training I share why desire to write matters more than we admit, and why confidence and stamina have to come before the essays, the paragraphs, and the short constructed responses. Build those two things first, and everything else gets easier.This is the foundation of my Structured Writers Workshop, the method I built after years of learning from my own editors as a published children's author. Throughout this series I'll keep coming back to confidence and stamina, daily warm-ups, voice, and the specific order I teach writing skills in.New to the Structured Writing method? Take the free crash course.The full-year writing and grammar curriculum for grades 3 through 8 is now complete. Thoughts? Questions? Send me a text message!➡️ Learn more about the FULL Structured Writing training PD📆 Grab my yearlong writing planner for free (it includes my eBook!)🎥 Watch the teaching strategies in action on YouTube📝 Read the latest blog posts for writing tips & ideas HAVE A QUESTION? Email me at [email protected]

It's a Deep Thoughts day, and I want to push on something most of us have never stopped to question: the order we plan our ELA year in. In this episode I get into how to intertwine reading and writing: how to get students reading like writers instead of scanning for comprehension answers, how your writing lessons can cover your RL and RI standards at the same time, and how many full novels I actually teach in a year (with a nod to Kelly Gallagher on reading volume). Writing is the spine. Reading is the muscle. You need both.  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEMy full-year writing & grammar curriculum3rd grade4th grade5th grade6th grade7th grade8th gradeFollow Beyond the Paragraph wherever you listen, and share this with a teacher bestie. To learn more about the Structured Writing method, visit structuredwritingteacher.com. Thoughts? Questions? Send me a text message!➡️ Learn more about the FULL Structured Writing training PD📆 Grab my yearlong writing planner for free (it includes my eBook!)🎥 Watch the teaching strategies in action on YouTube📝 Read the latest blog posts for writing tips & ideas HAVE A QUESTION? Email me at [email protected]