In an increasingly demanding world of literacy, it has become critical that students know how to write effectively. From the requirements of standardized tests to those of the wired workplace, the ability to write well, once a luxury, has become a necessity. Many students are leaving school without the necessary writing practice and skills needed to compete in a complex and fast-moving Information Age. Unless we teach them how to run with it, they are in danger of being run over by a stampede—a literacy stampede. InTeaching Adolescent Writers , Kelly Gallagher shows how students can be taught to write effectively. Gallagher shares a number of classroom-tested strategies that enable teachers to: Understand the importance of teaching writing and how to motivate young writers Show how modeling from both the teacher and real-world texts builds young writers Provide choice of what to write, which helps elevate adolescent writing, and how to fit it into a rigorous curriculum Help students recognize the importance of purpose and audience Assess essays in ways that drive better writing performance. Infused with humor and illuminating anecdotes, Gallagher draws on his classroom experiences and work as co-director of a regional writing project to offer teachers both practical ways to incorporate writing instruction into their day and compelling reasons to do so.
The goal of teaching writing is to create independent and self-motivated writers. When students write more often, they become better at writing. They acquire habits, skills, and strategies that enable them to learn more about the craft of writing. Yet they require the guidance and support of a more knowledgeable person who understands the writing process, the changes over time in writing development, and specific techniques and procedures for teaching writing. In Scaffolding Young Writers: A Writers' Workshop Approach, Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos present a clear road map for implementing writers' workshop in the primary grades. Adopting an apprenticeship approach, the authors show how explicit teaching, good models, clear demonstrations, established routines, assisted teaching followed by independent practice, and self-regulated learning are all fundamental in establishing a successful writers' workshop. There is a detailed chapter on organizing for writers' workshop, including materials, components, routines, and procedures. Other chapters provide explicit guidelines for designing productive mini-lessons and student conferences. Scaffolding Young Writers also features: an overview of how children become writers;analyses of students' samples according to informal and formal writing assessments;writing checklists, benchmark behaviors, and rubrics based on national standards;examples of teaching interactions during mini-lessons and writing conferences;illustrations of completed forms and checklists with detailed descriptions, and blank reproducible forms in the appendix for classroom use. Instruction is linked with assessment throughout the book, so that all teaching interactions are grounded in what children already know and what they need to know as they develop into independent writers.
Real-World Writers shows teachers how they can teach their pupils to write well and with pleasure, purpose and power. It demonstrates how classrooms can be transformed into genuine communities of writers where talking, reading, writing and sharing give children confidence, motivation and a sense of the relevance writing has to their own lives and learning. Based on their practical experience and what research says is the most effective practice, the authors share detailed guidance on how teachers can provide writing study lessons drawing on what real writers do and how to teach grammar effectively. They also share a variety of authentic class writing projects with accompanying teacher notes that will encourage children to use genres appropriately, creatively and flexibly. The authors’ simple yet comprehensive approach includes how to teach the processes and craft knowledge involved in creating successful and meaningful texts. This book is invaluable for all primary practitioners who wish to teach writing for real.
When Peyton comes across the victim of a hit-and-run, she knows it’s destiny. But what exactly does fate have in store for her and the boy in the coma? Since her parents divorced, twelve-year-old Peyton has known that to achieve happier outcomes in her life, she’s got to focus on eliminating her flaws—and on making sure her first boyfriend is truly right for her. Guided by her collection of inspirational quotes and her growing list of ideal boyfriend traits, Peyton is convinced that this summer will be the perfect summer, complete with the perfect boyfriend! But when she discovers a boy lying unconscious in the middle of the road, the victim of a hit-and-run, her perfect summer takes a dramatic detour. Determined to find the driver responsible, Peyton divides her time between searching her small town for clues and visiting the comatose (and cute!) boy in the hospital. When he wakes up, will he prove to be her destiny? Or does life have a few more surprises in store? With abundant warmth and gentle humor, Jennifer Richard Jacobson offers a novel about searching for perfect answers—and finding that reality is both messier and far more intriguing than anything you can dream up.
"Writing allows each of us to live with that special wide-awakeness that comes from knowing that our lives and our ideas are worth writing about." -Lucy Calkins Teaching Writing is Lucy Calkins at her best-a distillation of the work that's placed Lucy and her colleagues at the forefront of the teaching of writing for over thirty years. This book promises to inspire teachers to teach with renewed passion and power and to invigorate the entire school day. This is a book for readers who want an introduction to the writing workshop, and for those who've lived and breathed this work for decades. Although Lucy addresses the familiar topics-the writing process, conferring, kinds of writing, and writing assessment- she helps us see those topics with new eyes. She clears away the debris to show us the teeny details, and she shows us the majesty and meaning, too, in these simple yet powerful teaching acts. Download a sample chapter for more information.
As the world comes to grips with what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century, Understanding and Supporting Young Writers from Birth to 8 provides practitioners with the skills and knowledge they need to support young children effectively as they learn to write. Interweaving theory and research with everyday practice, the book offers guidance on all aspects of writing, from creating multimodal texts and building children’s vocabulary, to providing support for children who find writing particularly challenging. With appropriate strategies to develop young children’s writing from an early age included throughout, the book discusses the role of oral language in early writing in detail and explores the key relationships between ‘drawing and talking’, ‘drawing and writing’ and ‘drawing, talking and writing’. Each chapter also features samples of writing and drawing to illustrate key points, as well as reflective questions to help the reader apply ideas in their own settings. Further topics covered include: progressions in children’s writing writing in the pre-school years developing authorial skills developing editorial skills teaching writing to EAL learners. Understanding and Supporting Young Writers from Birth to 8 is a unique resource that will help early childhood educators, early years school teachers, specialist practitioners working with very young children, and students enrolled in Early Childhood or Primary Studies courses to boost their confidence in teaching young learners as they become writers.
An essential "how-to" primer, this book examines the process of learning to write and shares evidence-based instructional strategies for the primary grades. With an emphasis on explicit instruction and scaffolding students' learning, the authors explain when and how to teach handwriting, spelling, foundational skills such as sentence formation and editing, and composition in specific genres. They present clear-cut techniques for assessment, differentiation, and supporting struggling writers. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Writing are used as a framework for setting instructional goals. Reproducible assessment forms, checklists, and rubrics are provided; purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.
"Chapter 1 contains a definition and explanation of genre-based strategy instruction with self-regulation for kindergarten through grade 2. In Chapter 2, we discuss writing purposes and the writing process, and we provide explanations about how to make connections between reading and writing under the larger umbrella concept of genre. In Chapter 3, we explain the strategy for teaching strategies, which is the instructional blueprint for using this book and for the development of additional genre-based lessons. Chapters 4 to 6 are instructional chapters and include the lessons and resources for responses to reading, opinion writing, procedural writing, and story writing. Chapter 7 includes guidelines for sentence writing and application of oral language in grammar instruction"--