Short lessons with a big impact! Respond to your writers' needs with mini-lessons that will improve their craft and confidence. From the start, the I Can! chapter sets up writers to know what they can do, by learning to note and record their own strengths. Every chapter models strategies that foster students' self-regulated, independent writing, and includes adaptations that show how to adjust teaching for advanced writers, writers who struggle, English language learners, and extending the strategies across content areas. Each mini-lesson is laid out step by step for ease of use, including sections on: materials needed; modeling the lesson; student practice; and independent writing.

Engaging, explicit lessons using mini-excerpts from books and students’ writing show you how to teach grammar strategically. Zero in on the common grammar glitches, and model for students how to use nouns, verbs, and adjectives effectively, catch mismatched pronoun references; make prose lively with clauses and phrases, use the active voice, and more. From learning the parts of speech to the skill of paragraphing, this book covers it, and gives you what you need to teach grammar in the context of reading and writing. For use with Grades 4-8.

In this collection of engaging mini-lessons and companion reproducible pages, teacher Dave Leochko shares his favorite writing lessons--ones that have really helped his students become better writers. The classroom-tested lessons in this book take young writers through all the steps of the writing process, including getting an idea, revising a story, and conferencing with other writers, while also targeting specific skills, such as using punctuation correctly, varying sentence structure, making characters believable, and developing a plot. The reproducible pages feature activities that let students apply new skills, as well as writing tips and strategies they can collect and use a reference. For use with Grades 4-8.

Students become better writers when they have the techniques at their fingertips. With this book, you'll have the ready-to-go mini-lessons and follow-up practice sheets that target the writing skills students need most. Combine sentences, cut out clutter, remedy run-ons, show-don't-tell, doctoring dialogue, punching up passive sentences, and more! Fully reproducible! Perfect for daily quick-writes! For use with Grades 4 & Up.

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 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

Step-by-step guidance for teaching all major aspects of reading and writing. Sample lessons for every major literacy skill/strategy.

Writing nonfiction represents a big step for most students, yet when they try to create a report or persuasive essay, they are often anxious and frustrated. JoAnn Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher created Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing, K-8 to help teachers bring the passion from student writing while helping students scaffold their ideas in this challenging genre. The authors divided this book into grade-specific sections for K-2, 3-4, and middle school (grades 5-8) students. These divisions reflect various differences between emerging, competent, and fluent writers. In each section you'll find a generous collection of craft lessons directed at the genre that's most appropriate for that particular age. In the K-2 section, for example, a number of craft lessons focus on the all-about or concept book. In the 3-4 section there are several lessons on biography. In the 5-8 section a series of lessons addresses expository writing. Throughout the book each of the 80 lessons is presented on a single page in an easy-to-read format. Every lesson features three teaching guidelines: Discussion --A brief look at the reasons for teaching the particular element of craft specifically in a nonfiction context. How to Teach It --Concrete language showing exactly how a teacher might bring this craft element to students in writing conferences or a small-group setting. Resource Material --Specific book or text referred to in the craft lesson including trade books, or a piece of student writing in the Appendixes. This book will help students breathe voice into lifeless "dump-truck" writing and improve their nonfiction writing by making it clearer, more authoritative, and more organized. Nonfiction Craft Lessons gives teachers a wealth of practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers as they explore and explain the world around them.