Highly-effective, field-tested lesson plans that will help transform struggling elementary and middle school students into skilled writers

This timely book uses thinking structures to deepen student writing. It revolves around “brain pockets” to help students appreciate the qualities of different writing forms. Some powerful examples include memory pockets for personal narrative writing, fact pockets for nonfiction, and imagination pockets for story writing. Detailed lesson plans are featured along with sample anchor books and book lists. Based on extensive classroom testing, student samples throughout the book illustrate this unique approach to teaching writing. Suggestions for setting up an effective writing program and assessment tips for guiding instruction complete this comprehensive approach to developing a year-long writing program.

Helps make the writind process clearer and helps students organize their thoughts about the writing task.

Featuring a wealth of real-life examples, the book helps readers to understand the default strategies students bring to the classroom, and to work collaboratively on developing these into strategies for successful writing.

"Writing allows each of us to live with that special wide-awakeness that comes from knowing that our lives and our ideas are worth writing about." -Lucy Calkins Teaching Writing is Lucy Calkins at her best-a distillation of the work that's placed Lucy and her colleagues at the forefront of the teaching of writing for over thirty years. This book promises to inspire teachers to teach with renewed passion and power and to invigorate the entire school day. This is a book for readers who want an introduction to the writing workshop, and for those who've lived and breathed this work for decades. Although Lucy addresses the familiar topics-the writing process, conferring, kinds of writing, and writing assessment- she helps us see those topics with new eyes. She clears away the debris to show us the teeny details, and she shows us the majesty and meaning, too, in these simple yet powerful teaching acts. Download a sample chapter for more information.

Highly practical and accessible, this indispensable book provides clear-cut strategies for improving K-12 writing instruction. The contributors are leading authorities who demonstrate proven ways to teach different aspects of writing, with chapters on planning, revision, sentence construction, handwriting, spelling, and motivation. The use of the Internet in instruction is addressed, and exemplary approaches to teaching English-language learners and students with special needs are discussed. The book also offers best-practice guidelines for designing an effective writing program. Focusing on everyday applications of current scientific research, the book features many illustrative case examples and vignettes.

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.

Developed for middle and high school teachers, the classroom-ready lessons in this practical guide will help strengthen students' reading comprehension and written expression so they can master academic content.

This volume presents effective instructional programs focused on two perspectives on writing: the teaching and learning of writing as a skill and the use of writing as a learning activity in various school subjects or skills acquisition. It is focused on analysing micro-design features of the programs (such as learning activities, supporting materials, specific strategies, instructional techniques) but also, macro-design rules of intervention programs (such as, instructional sequence, instructional stages) based on research evidence provided for previous studies. This volume goes beyond a practical volume because it provides additional reflection and discussion about theoretical background and empirically based evidence which support the specific intervention programs described. Several chapters in this book include links to an Open Access e-book where teacher and student materials for the authors’ instructional approaches can be found (see ToC).

As classrooms become more and more diverse, teachers are faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of all their students--both English-speaking students and English Language Learners. Teaching writing is especially challenging in these mixed-language classrooms. In this book, a national literacy leader offers a variety of techniques for teaching writing that will motivate all students, while also providing ELLs with the supports they need. The techniques include using patterns--song, rhymes, and playground games; short forms, such as slogans and mottos; frames for scaffolding standard writing forms like letters and invitations; and highly structured genres, such as fairy tales and legends. These engaging structured writing experiences will help all students develop the skills they need to write with confidence. For use with Grades K-5.