This book illustrates how teachers of elementary-age writers bring their beliefs about teaching and learning to life--through the visions they hold for writers, writing, and the world, as well as through the decisions they make every day in their classrooms. Teachers today face contextual challenges and pressures that may conflict with their visions of effective teaching. Katie Van Sluys demonstrates how to (re)claim our professional practice to ensure that young people have the opportunity to become competent, constantly growing writers who use writing to think, communicate, and pose as well as solve problems. Using NCTE's Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing as a starting point for understandings about writing research and what it can tell us about effective writing practices in elementary classrooms, Van Sluys invites us to articulate our own beliefs as we explore why and what we write, how we write and how we teach, how we assess progress, and how we advocate for the practices we believe in. Through real classroom examples and teacher and student reflections, she helps us understand how the decisions that both we and our students make today can help them not only learn to write well but also to use writing to create the world they want to live in.

The Second Edition of Becoming a Teacher of Writing in Elementary Classrooms is an interactive learning experience focusing on all aspects of becoming-writer and teacher of writing in the Writing Studio. The Writing Studio is illustrated with authentic classroom scenarios and include descriptions of assessments, mini-lessons, mentor texts, and collaborative and individual teaching strategies. The parallel text, Becoming-Writer, allows readers to engage as writers while learning and applying writing process, practice, and craft of the Writing Studio. The new edition includes integration of preschool writers, multilingual learners, translanguaging, culturally sustaining pedagogy, social emotional learning, Universal Design for Learning and an updated companion website with teacher resources. This dynamic text supports teachers’ agency in the ongoing journey of joyful teaching and writing.

Writing Workshop in the Elementary Classroom is a culmination of the authors’ work with students and writing for collectively over 35 years. Teaching writing using a workshop methodology can be exciting as it is an interactive approach to writing, but it can also be challenging as it is not the traditional teacher directed whole class lessons that many test preparation curriculums tout. The book takes the reader through the stages of the writing process in the first part, explaining what students are doing and thinking in each stage. In the second part, the authors explain how to manage students, materials, mini lessons, grading and other aspects that help writing workshop classrooms run smoothly. To help with the transition to a workshop method, readers are asked to keep a journal wherein they plan what they will do in their classrooms.

Stacey Shubitz and Lynne Dorfman welcome you to experience the writing workshop for the first time or in a new light with Welcome to Writing Workshop: Engaging Today's Students with a Model That Works. Through strategic routines, tips, resources, and short focused video clips, teachers can create the sights and sounds of a thriving writing workshop where: - Both students and teachers are working authors - Students spend most of their time writing--not just learning about it- Student choice is encouraged to help create engaged writers, not compliant ones - Students are part of the formative assessment process - Students will look forward to writing time--not dread it. From explanations of writing process and writing traits to small-group strategy lessons and mini-lessons, this book will provide the know-how to feel confident and comfortable in the teaching of writers.

"The Handbook of Reading Research is the research handbook for the field. Each volume has come to define the field for the period of time it covers ... When taken as a set, the four volumes provide a definitive history of reading research"--Back of cover, volume 4.

2014 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice "What’s going on in this picture?" With this one question and a carefully chosen work of art, teachers can start their students down a path toward deeper learning and other skills now encouraged by the Common Core State Standards. The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaching method has been successfully implemented in schools, districts, and cultural institutions nationwide, including bilingual schools in California, West Orange Public Schools in New Jersey, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It provides for open-ended yet highly structured discussions of visual art, and significantly increases students’ critical thinking, language, and literacy skills along the way. Philip Yenawine, former education director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and cocreator of the VTS curriculum, writes engagingly about his years of experience with elementary school students in the classroom. He reveals how VTS was developed and demonstrates how teachers are using art—as well as poems, primary documents, and other visual artifacts—to increase a variety of skills, including writing, listening, and speaking, across a range of subjects. The book shows how VTS can be easily and effectively integrated into elementary classroom lessons in just ten hours of a school year to create learner-centered environments where students at all levels are involved in rich, absorbing discussions.

Work with students at all levels to help them read novels Whole Novels is a practical, field-tested guide to implementing a student-centered literature program that promotes critical thinking and literary understanding through the study of novels with middle school students. Rather than using novels simply to teach basic literacy skills and comprehension strategies, Whole Novels approaches literature as art. The book is fully aligned with the Common Core ELA Standards and offers tips for implementing whole novels in various contexts, including suggestions for teachers interested in trying out small steps in their classrooms first. Includes a powerful method for teaching literature, writing, and critical thinking to middle school students Shows how to use the Whole Novels approach in conjunction with other programs Includes video clips of the author using the techniques in her own classroom This resource will help teachers work with students of varying abilities in reading whole novels.

Tap into your inner writer with this book of practical advice by the bestselling author of How Writers Work and the ALA Notable Book Fig Pudding. Writers are just like everyone else—except for one big difference. Most people go through life experiencing daily thoughts and feelings, noticing and observing the world around them. But writers record these thoughts and observations. They react. And they need a special place to record those reactions. Perfect for classrooms, A Writer’s Notebook gives budding writers a place to keep track of all the little things they notice every day. Young writers will love these useful tips for how to use notes and jottings to create stories and poems of their own.

Reissue of ILA bestseller. To become truly college and career ready, students need to be able to communicate effectively in writing, and teachers need to be confident and prepared to teach writing in ways that motivate, encourage, and challenge students to higher levels. In this practical volume, a stellar group of researchers and classroom educators come together to provide instructional strategies that can increase student engagement and motivation to write. Write Now! empowers K–6 classroom teachers to make key instructional decisions that benefit all learners. This user-friendly e-book includes practical tips, strategies, techniques, and concrete examples to help expand the writing expertise of both typical and challenged learners. Contributors: Rose Cappelli, Amber B. Chambers, Lynne R. Dorfman, Kathy Ganske, Matt Glover, Steve Graham, Dana L. Grisham, Karen R. Harris, Julia D. Houston, Jon-Philip Imbrenda, Carol Jago, Karen A. Pelekis, Carole C. Phillips, Timothy Shanahan, Linda Smetana, Michael W. Smith, Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Thomas DeVere Wolsey “Writing fluently and with cohesion is essential for all young children to master because it is a gateway skill for higher learning. Ganske’s approach makes the most of current research on writing and makes it instantly applicable to the classroom.” —Nancy Frey, San Diego State University

Build a classroom of excited, talented young writers. This wonderful teaching resource offers a complete approach to creating a classroom of enthusiastic, skillful student writers. The authors provide a comprehensive approach to teaching writing in the classroom. This book offers the strategies teachers need to teach writing skills that meet national standards and to produce excellent results from children. Topics addressed in this guidebook include: creating the writing classroom, teaching the writing process, teaching effective writing strategies, teaching elements of story structure, teaching the advanced craft of writing, and using a writer's workshop to teach good writing. Writing is a great differentiator. During the writer's workshop, each student is engaged in meaningful ways. Pulling together more than three decades of practical experience and research on the best strategies for teaching writing, Writing Like Writers offers a friendly, easy-to-use guide for any teacher seeking to build a classroom of successful writers. Grades 2-6