© 2013 Luke Jones, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are a number of great resources for teaching writing. I’m adding most to The Best Posts On Writing Instruction: Richard Byrne writes about the Hemingway App might have turned itself into a useful writing tool and not just a gimmick. I’m adding it to The Best Online Tools That Can Help Students Write An Essay. Speaking of those kinds of online tools, one that’s already on that list, Write Well, today just announced some useful improvements. Dylan Wiliam advises: Forget the Rubric; Use Work Samples Instead is a pretty important post by Doug Lemov. Be sure to also check out Dylan William’s comment on it. In addition to adding it to my "Writing" Best list, I’m also adding it to The Best Rubric Sites (And A Beginning Discussion About Their Use). The Moving Writers have created a great collection of mentor texts. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement. WISE EYES: Prompting for Meaningful Student Writing is from The National Writing Project. I’m adding it to the same list. School Writing Vs. Authentic Writing is by Ken Lindblom. @Larryferlazzo It's the blog Two Writing Teachers. My #1 favorite blog about teaching writing https://t.co/wQddlTEs11 #TWTblog — Jenny Maehara (@jennymae) August 11, 2015 Check out @steve8071 's cool blog post on pop-up books and paper engineering http://t.co/VviwDx4KCK #unccwp #nwp #lrng — Cindy Urbanski (@birdawg) August 4, 2015

Frank Bruni wrote a New York Times column this morning that pretty much summarizes good policy changes that could be made to enhance the attractiveness of the teaching profession: higher salaries, a career ladder, a career ladder, a voice in policy decisions and more. Here’s how he ends it: I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles About The Importance Of Teacher (& Student) Working Conditions.

© 2013 John Fowler, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio As The NY Times describes it: the annual Perseid meteor shower will fill the sky with shooting stars. At its peak, between Aug. 11 and Aug. 14, an average of one shooting star a minute will zip through the night sky. I have a number of related resources already at The Best Sites For Learning About Meteor Showers, but here are some new ones specific to this week: The Perseid meteor shower — the year’s best — is tonight. Here’s how to see it. is from Vox. Infographic Seeing the Perseid meteor shower is from The L.A. Times.

© 2013 DonkeyHotey, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio I’ve got a small handful of blog posts scheduled over the next few days, but I’ll be taking a break for a few days from writing anything new. I’ll be back "on the job" by the middle of next week after taking the time to both wrap up my next book and to relax a bit before the new school year begins. Though my blog posts will be slowing down during that time, I suspect I’ll still be active on Twitter. See you next week!

Thanks to Jim Bentley, I learned about Karen Ogen‘s nice collection of learning games called Interactive Sites For Education. I’m adding it to The Best Collections Of Online Educational Games.

Here’s a very young Morgan Freeman demonstrating a fun classroom game. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Learn About (And View Video Clips Of) Teachers In The Movies.

I’m adding this video to The Best TV/Movie Scenes Showing Good & Bad Classroom Discussions:

Here are new additions to The Best Resources For Learning About NASA’s "New Horizons" Spacecraft: See the Pluto portrait 85 years in the making is from The Washington Post.

Q & A Collections: Teaching Reading & Writing is the title of my latest post at Education Week Teacher. In it, you can find all my posts on Teaching Reading & Writing from the past four years - in one place! Here’s an excerpt from one of them: