Writing Contest Winners...
On my campus, my principal stresses the importance of great writing. As a former senior English teacher, my students can attest to you, how much I stressed the value of active writing over passive writing. I forbade the following "To Be" verbs from their essays: am, is are, was, were, be, being, been, became, become, seems appears and got. THEY HATED ME...at first! But over time, I had them slinging essays and poetry books like it was nothing... all without "to be" verbs! When they graduated--AND as this Facebook post will attest to--they knew the power of writing concise and with direct/active purpose: Though they complained, I always wrote with my students following all the rules I assigned. I did it to keep my edge, to model and to show them that I wouldn't ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. There's an article titled "Do You Write with your Students?" Here's a wonderful graphic, courtesy of Edutopia , that c