Writing

Whether writing a blog entry or a high-stakes test essay, fiction or nonfiction, short story or argumentation, students need to know certain things in order to write effectively. In 10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know, Jeff Anderson focuses on developing the concepts and application of ten essential aspects of good writing—motion, models, focus, detail, form, frames, cohesion, energy, words, and clutter.

Throughout the book, Jeff provides dozens of model texts, both fiction and nonfiction, that bring alive the ten things every writer needs to know. By analyzing strong mentor texts, young writers learn what is possible and experiment with the strategies professional writers use. Students explore, discover, and apply what makes good writing work. Jeff dedicates a chapter to each of the ten things every writer needs to know and provides mini-lessons, mentor texts, writing process strategies, and classroom tips that will motivate students to confidently and competently take on any writing task.

With standardized tests and Common Core Curriculum influencing classrooms nationwide, educators must stay true to what works in writing instruction. 10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know keeps teachers on track—encouraging, discovering, inspiring, reminding, and improving writing through conversation, inquiry, and the support of good writing behaviors.

Grounded in social and cognitive learning theories, the second edition of Apprenticeship in Literacy: Transitions Across Reading and Writing, K-4 still details the seven principles of apprenticeship learning and helps K–4 teachers implement and assess guided reading, assisted writing, literature discussion groups, word study lessons, and literacy centers across an integrated curriculum. The new edition also features the following:

• Updated research emphasizing the importance of early reading as a road map for success
• Information on how behaviors, from emergent to fluent, align to the Common Core State Standards
• Dozens of new classroom examples—students' work, photographs, transcripts, teacher-student conferences, and reproducible resources
• Language prompts that promote self-regulated learners
• Schedules for implementing a workshop framework in whole-group, small-group, and one-to-one settings
• Suggestions for incorporating information texts into a balanced literacy program
• Stronger emphasis on the importance of the writing process
• Additional ideas on establishing routines and organizing the classroom

The theme of apprenticeship in literacy resonates throughout the book: children learn from teachers and teachers learn from one another as they promote children's transfer of knowledge across multiple contexts. The final chapter provides real-world examples of teachers working together to ensure that all children become literate.

Since its original publication in 1998, Apprenticeship in Literacy has become a teacher favorite, covering all aspects of a balanced literacy program in an integrated manner and showing how all components are differentiated to address the needs of diverse learners. An apprenticeship approach to literacy emphasizes the role of the teacher in providing demonstrations, engaging children, monitoring their understanding, providing timely support, and ultimately withdrawing that support as the child gains independence.

• Layered Leadership, the multitude of supports in place for teachers to encourage learning and change within schools
• Shared experiences that develop community and develop common understanding of practices, curriculum, and assessment
• Importance of “rowing in the same direction” in that literacy coaches and leaders stay interconnected and aligned to the goals of the school

What would a classroom look like if understanding and respecting differences in race, culture, beliefs, and opinions were at its heart? If you were inspired to become a teacher because you wanted to develop young minds, but now find yourself limited by "teach to the test" pressures and state standards, Mary Cowhey's book Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades will reignite the passion and remind you that educators provide more than test prep. 

Starting her career as a community activist, Cowhey shares her roots and how they influenced her Peace Class, where she asks her students to think critically, learn through activism and discussion, and view the entire curriculum through the framework of understanding the world, and what they can do to make it a better place.

Woven through the book is Mary's unflinching and humorous account of her own roots as well as lessons from her heroes: Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, Jr, and others. Her students learn to make connections between their lives, the books they read, the community leaders they meet, and the larger world.

Black Ants and Buddhists offers no easy answers, but it does include starting points for conversations about diversity and controversy in your classroom, as well as in the larger community. Students and teachers investigate problems and issues together, in a multicultural, antiracist classroom.
 

Writing test scores indicate that boys have fallen far behind girls across the grades. In general, boys don't enjoy writing as much as girls. What's wrong? How can we do a better of job of creating “boy-friendly” classrooms so their voices can be heard?

In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices Ralph Fletcher draws upon his years of experience as staff developer, children's book author, and father of four boys. He also taps the insights from dozens of writing teachers around the US and abroad. Boy Writers asks teachers to imagine the writing classroom from a boy's perspective, and consider specific steps we might take to create stimulating classrooms for boys.

Topic choice emerges as a crucial issue. The subjects many boys like to write about (war, weapons, outlandish fiction, zany or bathroom humor) often do not get a warm reception from teachers. Fletcher argues that we must “widen the circle” and give boys more choice if we want to engage them as writers. How? We must begin by recognizing boys and the world in which they live. Boy Writers explores important questions such as:

• What subjects are boy writers passionate about, and what motivates them as writers?
• Why do boys like to incorporate violence into their stories, and how much should be allowed?
• Why do we so often misread and misunderstand the humor boys include in their stories?

In addition, the book looks at: how handwriting can hamstring boy writers, and how drawing may help; welcoming boy-friendly writing genres in our classrooms; ways to improve our conferring with boys; and more.

Each chapter begins with a thorough discussion of a topic and ends with a highly practical section titled: "What can I do in my classroom?" Boy Writers does not advocate promoting the interests of boys at the expense of girls. Rather, it argues that developing sensitivity to the unique facets of boy writers will help teachers better address the needs of all their students.

Every teacher of reading plays a vital role in helping to catch those readers for whom learning to read does not come easily. Through examples from both adults and children, the authors explain and describe the complex integrated network of strategies that go on in the minds of proficient readers—strategies that struggling readers have to learn in order to construct their own reading processes. This book is essential reading for all who work with struggling readers in any context and contains a wealth of resources, including a thorough explanation of all the sources of information readers use to solve words, examples and scenarios of teacher/student interactions, prompts to use with struggling readers, lessons on modeling, and assessment guidelines.

In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach students math and reading skills; they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings. Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning shows how teachers can accomplish this by using their most powerful teaching tool: language.

Throughout this book, author Peter Johnston provides examples of seemingly ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how and what we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Students learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies, but adapting them to their lives outside of the classroom.

In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important. This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.

In his workshops with teachers over the years, Patrick Allen has encountered a long list of “counterfeit beliefs” about the process of conferring with students, including such comments as: “I don’t have time. I don’t know what questions to ask, It’s too hard, I don’t know what to write in my notes, I don’t even take notes, I don’t know how to go deep. .  .” In Conferring: The Keystone of Reader’s Workshop, Allen argues that the benefits of conferring are well-worth the effort of learning to do it well. And then he sets out to show teachers how to overcome all of their perceived obstacles, and make the somewhat intangible aspect of conferring tangible.

Just as the keystone—a symmetrical, wedge-shaped stone at the center of an arch—forms the foundation of a structure, conferring lays the groundwork for effective reading instruction. Allen defines the word confer as a verb “meaning to consult together, compare opinions, or carry on a conversation.” Conferences with students are purposeful conversations that scaffold reading comprehension strategies that guide the reader’s progress, and ultimately, through the gradual release of responsibility, create independent readers. 

Allen begins by explaining what conferring is and what it’s not, and then unpacks the essential components of the process: intimacy (the social context of conferring); rigor (the cognitive context); and inquiry (the analytical context). He  explores the guiding principles of conferring—including goal setting, instruction points, listening, rapport, challenges, and  teacher learning—and provides questions that lead teachers through the reader’s conference from start to finish.

Since its publication in 1998 Craft Lessons has become a staple in the writing classroom of both new and experienced teachers. Authors Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi recognized the need for a succinct resource and teamed together to write the second edition of Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8. Teachers pressed for time will appreciate the practical lessons and instructional language geared to three grade level groupings: K-2, 3-4, and 5-8. This edition includes:
 

• 17 brand new lessons; mini lessons designed from teachers’ comments about what is observed in students’ writing
• Revisions to other craft lessons and the resource materials sections have been expanded
• New ways to approach teaching using elements of craft and the reading-writing connection
• A subject index to find specific craft lessons with ease
• The authors’ thoughts about how craft lessons fit into their newest thinking about the qualities of writing: Ideas, Design, Language, and Presentation

The 95 lessons in this book provide a wealth of information for teaching leads, character, endings, stronger verbs, and much more. This new edition reestablishes Craft Lessons as the crucial “desert island book” for harried writing teachers everywhere

“Do I really have to teach reading?”

This is a question many teachers ask, wondering how they can add a new element to an overloaded curriculum. The answer is yes; if teachers want their students to learn complex new concepts in different disciplines, they need to help develop their students’ reading skills.

In Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12, author Cris Tovani takes on the challenge of helping students apply reading comprehension strategies in any subject. Tovani shows how teachers can expand on their content expertise to provide the instruction students need to understand specific technical and narrative texts. Inside the book you’ll find:

• Examples of how teachers can model their reading process for students
• Ideas for supplementing and enhancing the use of required textbooks
• Detailed descriptions of specific strategies taught in context
• Stories from different high school classrooms to show how reading instruction varies according to content
• Samples of student work, including both struggling readers and college-bound seniors
• “Comprehension Constructors”: guides designed to help students recognize and capture their thinking in writing while reading
• Guidance on assessing students
• Tips for balancing content and reading instruction

Tovani’s humor, honesty, and willingness to share her own struggles as a teacher make this a unique take on content reading instruction that will be valuable to reading teachers as well as content specialists.