Why do capable students and scholars fail to complete writing projects? What are "writing blocks," and how can writers overcome them? Why are writing blocks more common for advanced and experienced writers who are not supposed to need help? And why are they more common in the humanities than in the sciences? Keith Hjortshoj answers these and other questions in Understanding Writing Blocks. This book demystifies the causes of writing blocks, which are often ignored, misunderstood, or attributed to obscure psychological disorders. Hjortshoj examines blocks instead as real writing problems arising from specific misconceptions, writing behaviors, and rhetorical factors present at different stages of the writing process. In a lively and informative style, he defines the nature of writing blocks, examines their causes, and offers advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional writers the diagnostic tools and strategies necessary for getting their work done. Although appropriate for any writing course, Understanding Writing Blocks targets advanced composition students and graduate writers who are most likely to encounter immobilizing obstacles, and whose experience supports the author's assertion that a writing block is usually "an affliction of the good writer." Hjortshoj draws his material and evidence from extensive research, interviews, and consultations with blocked writers from his twenty-five years of teaching. Especially helpful to students working on dissertations and other complex projects, Understanding Writing Blocks illuminates the factors that undermine writing ability in a wide range of endeavors.

Written by legal and education experts and aligned with the reauthorization of IDEA 2004, this practical resource provides a step-by-step plan for creating, writing, and evaluating IEPs.

Why you need a writing revolution in your classroom and how to lead it The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback. Insurmountable as the challenges faced by many students may seem, The Writing Revolution can make a dramatic difference. And the method does more than improve writing skills. It also helps: Boost reading comprehension Improve organizational and study skills Enhance speaking abilities Develop analytical capabilities The Writing Revolution is as much a method of teaching content as it is a method of teaching writing. There's no separate writing block and no separate writing curriculum. Instead, teachers of all subjects adapt the TWR strategies and activities to their current curriculum and weave them into their content instruction. But perhaps what's most revolutionary about the TWR method is that it takes the mystery out of learning to write well. It breaks the writing process down into manageable chunks and then has students practice the chunks they need, repeatedly, while also learning content.

Understanding Style: Practical Ways to Improve Your Writing, Third Edition, uses the findings of modern linguistics to explore the relationship between written and spoken voices and to uncover little-known ways to control rhythm and emphasis. With a focus on sound and voice, author Joe Glaser explains and illustrates measurable, non-subjective keys to good writing--an approach that yields practical writing techniques and advice rarely found elsewhere. An excellent choice for courses in advanced composition, this book also covers more standard topics such as economy, diction, coherence, and variety--along with abundant open-ended exercises drawn from business, history, popular science, and other areas.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

With the guidance of children's writing enthusiast Ruth Shagoury, teachers will learn to listen to all their students and look at their written work with a new and appreciative lens--one that also helps them anticipate and encourage students in developing new skills appropriately. Drawing on her many years of primary classroom teaching and research, Ruth offers primary teachers, early childhood specialists, and caregivers strategies to nurture connections between oral and writing skills at every stage of children's development for today's multicultural classroom. Ruth's thorough exploration of how young children learn written language presents teachers with the necessary tools to understand the growth and development of written language in a literate culture. Filled with a wealth of resources for extending learning beyond the classroom, Raising Writers: Understanding and Nurturing Young Children's Writing Development includes interviews with the author and book study questions making this a perfect book for book club study groups. Help your students make the transition from oral to written language! Explores the written language development of pre-school through primary school age children. Addresses important topics such as the role of the culture of literacy, how drawing and writing go hand-in hand, and the developmental path of spelling and conventions. Identifies the parallels between oral and written language development with the use of a developmental continuum chart. In addition, the book includes an annotated guide with research foundation for the continuum. Includes numerous samples of children's work and photos to bring the information in the book to life. Offers book recommendations for spelling programs and additional writing instruction resources, as well as picture book suggestions for multicultural classrooms. Includes a book club study guide at the end of the book.

Understanding Literature is an innovative anthology and technology package representing the next generation of literary pedagogy for introduction to literature and literature for composition courses. Built on a balanced foundation of canonical and nontraditional reading selections, this text includes discussions of the formal literary elements--and integrates relevant and accessible coverage of contemporary criticism. This unique, integrated coverage of contemporary critical approaches offers students a richer, more engaging introduction to reading critically and writing about literature.

After shaking up writing classrooms at more than 550 colleges, universities, and high schools, Understanding Rhetoric, the comic-style guide to writing, has returned for a third edition! Understanding Rhetoric encourages deep engagement with core concepts of writing and rhetoric. With brand-new coverage of fake news, sourcing the source, podcasting as publishing, and support for common writing assignments, the new edition of the one and only composition comic covers what students need to know—and does so with fun and flair.