Autumn Inspiration for Writing Teachers:...

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Autumn Inspiration for Writing Teachers: October's Best Teaching Practices, Tech Tools, and Podcast News

By Stacey Shubitz

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

I met Rachel, one of my closest friends, in October of my first year of college. We connected right away when she recognized my last name and realized her best friend from high school had dated my cousin. That small connection grew into a friendship that has lasted more than thirty years. We share a love of “The West Wing,” which we watched faithfully in our twenties. So when Aaron Sorkin, the creator of “The West Wing,” appeared on The New York Times' “The Interview” podcast, Rachel texted me immediately.

Early in Sorkin's interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, he talked about how he creates characters when writing nonfiction. I wanted to share his perspective, since many of you teach your students nonfiction writing.

“I'll do my research. I'll learn everything I can about the reality. But in the process of thinking about it, and then the process of writing it, it becomes the same as a fictional character for me. It becomes my character that I'm creating. The studio's legal department will make sure that I'm staying inside the lines. But it's this imaginary thing, and it has my voice, and eventually it's going to be played by an actor, and it's going to have that face.”

That quote has stayed with me. It reminds me of the narrative nonfiction units many of you teach. Setting aside the legal department, we can learn a lot from Sorkin about developing characters in nonfiction writing and share that with students. Like Sorkin, we can teach kids to go beyond facts and imagine whomever they're writing about as a person with their own motivations and complexities.

Teachers can help kids think of their nonfiction subjects as characters, while staying true to the facts. This can make kids' writing feel more engaging and authentic.

On the Blog

Instead of listing all our September content, I asked my T.W.TBlog colleagues which posts have been most impactful and relevant so far this school year. Here's what some of them shared:

Melanie Meehan said that Shawnda Fukano wrote about One Topic Writers in September 2025. “While I value knowledge building and transfer of skills, I also recognize the importance of choice, the complexity of writing, and all that young writers learn by writing about a familiar and beloved topic. Those skills provide confidence when writers have to take on an unfamiliar or assigned topic, so, as Shawnda explains, it is worth their time to write about one topic if that's what they choose to do.”

Ana Valentina Patton recently included Beginning the Year with a Few Questions in a weekly memo to the teachers she coaches. Here's what she sent to them: The time we spend reading students' writing and getting to know their strengths is a powerful investment in our relationships with them and their growing identities as writers. We need to build a strong foundation for all the feedback and support that will follow throughout the school year. Check out this post for three key questions to ask about each of your students!

I said that “How to Name a Transferable Teaching Point in a Writing Conference by Bethh Moore helps educators build students' long-term writing independence early in the school year. Its practical frameworks—like applying specific sentence starters and stating the 'big picture' purpose first—give teachers clear, organized routines when workshop expectations are being established.”

Leah Thomas stated that “an old post of Melanie Meehan's was my introduction to the blog. She shares brilliant ideas for making writing checklists into something kids actually use. You can read it here.”

I.C.Y.M.I: Click here to read through all of our September 2026 blog posts.

On the Pod

The fifth season of the Two Writing Teachers Podcast will resume on Sunday, October 11th with an episode called “Meeting in the Middle by Balancing Technology, A.I, and Student Agency: A Digging Deeper Dialogue.”

Before you listen on October 11th, check out “Writing Workshop in Contentious Times,” which is as relevant now as it was when it was released in May 2026.

Among New Tech Tools

The Recommendo Newsletter is one of my favorite sources for discovering new tech tools. Here are a few recent tools I found through their Sunday morning emails.

Copynpaste moves text between applications and platforms without losing formatting.

Convertcase changes text from all capital letters to sentence case, lowercase, title case, and more.

Paper2Audio's free tier converts documents to audio using a range of natural-sounding A.I voices. I have used it often in recent weeks, and it does an excellent job reading special education law aloud, summarizing tables, and more.

In Our Ears

“Back-to-school with Big Tech” on Fresh Air with Terry Gross

“Caution: Contents Under Pressure” on the Kohn Zone with Alfie Kohn

“When School Accommodations Aren't Enough: Why Neurodivergent Students Need Skill-Building Too” on Diverse Thinking, Different Learning with Kayren Wilson

On Our Minds

“125 Tests of the New A.I Siri” by David Pogue

“An M.I.T. Report Warns A.I. Is Causing 'Cognitive Surrender.' Universities Are in a Bind.” by Mark Arsenault, Dana Goldstein, Alan Blinder, and Sarah Mervosh

“I Study Successful People. They Have One Habit in Common.” by Angela Duckworth

“One Reason People Are Spending So Much Time Alone” by Julie Beck

“School Is Back in Session, and Recess Is Having a Moment” by Emily Tate Sullivan

Enjoy the month of October, and happy listening when the Two Writing Teachers Podcast returns for season five.

My best,

Stacey Shubitz