This book is a practical, highly readable guide to teaching writing across a broad range of ages and grade levels (K-8). Each stage of the writing process is covered in detail, from setting a purpose for writing to drafting, revising, editing, and producing a "finished" product. The goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of writing development and best practices in teaching, richly illustrated with examples of student work. Teachers learn strategies and techniques to help students work independently and in groups to develop meaningful projects; master needed skills through engaging mini-lessons; produce various forms of fiction and nonfiction writing; and use literature as a source of inspiration and modeling. Special features include "Teacher's Tips" and quick-reference lists that reinforce key points and aid in instructional planning. An invaluable Appendix provides booklists for mini-lessons on a variety of thematic, stylistic, and grammatical topics.

"I'm done. What should I do now?" If you hear this question all too often during the independent work portion of writing workshop, Leah Mermelstein has a solution for making this time more productive for both students and teachers. Mermelstein argues that the "third essential element," creating self-directed writers, is key to the success of writing workshops. Using a wealth of classroom anecdotes, student samples, and specific teaching language, Mermelstein illustrates how even the youngest students can become self-directed learners. Her strategies include: creating an appropriate physical environment along with daily rituals and routines, scaffolding instruction with write-alouds and interactive writing; and planning unites, focus lessons, conferences, and shares that are aimed at helping kids become self-directed.

The Antiracist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering artistic communities for a new millennium of writers. Inspired by June Jordan 's 1995 Poetry for the People, here is a blueprint for a 21st-century workshop model that protects and platforms writers of color. Instead of earmarking dusty anthologies, imagine workshop participants Skyping with contemporary writers of difference. Instead of tolerating bigoted criticism, imagine workshop participants moderating their own feedback sessions. Instead of yielding to the red-penned judgement of instructors, imagine workshop participants citing their own text in dialogue. The Antiracist Writing Workshop is essential reading for anyone looking to revolutionize the old workshop model into an enlightened, democratic counterculture.

Where others have talked about new technologies and how they change writing, Troy Hicks shows how to use new technologies to enhance writing instruction. Chapters are organized around the familiar principles of the writing workshop: student choice, active revision, craft, publication beyond the classroom, and assessment of product and process. You'll learn to expand and improve your teaching by smartly incorporating new technologies like wikis, blogs, and other forms of multimedia. Throughout, you'll find reference to resources readily available to you and your class online.

This book explores the effectiveness of the workshop in the Creative Writing classroom, and looks beyond the question of whether or not the workshop works to address the issue of what an altered pedagogical model might look like. In visualising what else is possible in the workshop space, the sixteen chapters collected in ‘Does the Writing Workshop Still Work?’ cover a range of theoretical and pedagogical topics and explore the inner workings and conflicts of the workshop model. The needs of a growing and diverse student population are central to the chapter authors’ consideration of non-normative pedagogies. The book is a must-read for all teachers of Creative Writing, as well as for researchers in Creative Writing Studies.

“Omg this book had me gripped from start to finish!” Reader reviewer Someone is watching them...

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.

How many times during writing workshop have you thought, "If only I could clone myself!" Dana and Sonja have a solution for finding more one-on-one teaching time: flipped learning. Imagine students having access to instruction and support when they need it. While not a replacement for you, the teacher, flipped learning allows students to: access a variety of minilessons on their own; work at their own pace to study the minilesson; move ahead or review concepts, depending on individual needs. Meanwhile, you'll have more time to maximize individualized instruction and conferring. Dana and Sonja walk you through the how's and why's of flipped learning, and illustrate what it looks like in a writing workshop by modeling a flipped lesson. Whether you're a nove or an advanced technology user, you'll find tech tips throughout the book that help you choose the right tools and resources for creating flipped lessons and incorporating them into your workshop. Discover how a blended approach using flipped learning can increase efficiency in your writing workshop, while fostering independent learning at the same time. -- from back cover.

To break into the screenwriting game, you need a screenplay that is not just good, but great. Superlative. Stellar. In Writing Movies you'll find everything you need to know to reach this level. And, like the very best teachers, Writing Movies is always practical, accessible, and entertaining. The book provides a comprehensive look at screenwriting, covering all the fundamentals (plot, character, scenes, dialogue, etc.) and such crucial-but seldom discussed-topics as description, voice, tone, and theme. These concepts are illustrated through analysis of five brilliant screenplays-Die Hard, Thelma & Louise, Tootsie, Sideways, and The Shawshank Redemption. Also included are writing assignments and step-by-step tasks that take writers from rough idea to polished screenplay. Written by Gotham Writers' Workshop expert instructors, Writing Movies offers the same winning style and clarity of presentation that have made a success of Gotham's previous book Writing Fiction, which is now in its 7th printing. Named the "best class for screenwriters" in New York City by MovieMaker Magazine, Gotham Writers' Workshop is America's leading private creative writing school, offering classes in Manhattan and on the Web at www.WritingClasses.com. The school's interactive online classes, selected as "Best of the Web" by Forbes, have attracted thousands of aspiring writers from across the United States and more than sixty countries.