Why do students often graduate from high school unprepared for college writing? And what can we do about it? These are the questions that a group of classroom teachers set out to explore. Over the course of seven years, a group of middle, high school, college, and university teachers participated in a federally funded writing coalition project to implement innovative approaches to teaching writing. Together they developed this series of lesson plans designed to make writing both fun and an integral part of diverse curricula. "Practical" is the recurrent motif of each teaching strategy. Developed by real teachers in real classrooms, the lessons are grouped into seven categories: writing process, portfolios, literature, research, grammar, writing on demand, and media. Each lesson follows a standard format that includes purpose of the activity; necessary preparation; required props and materials; process and procedure for implementation; instructional pointers and/or possible pitfalls; and reflections from the teacher that provide "behind the scenes" insights.

Interactive Writing is specifically focused on the early phases of writing, and has special relevance to prekindergarten, kindergarten, grade 1 and 2 teachers.

This is an essential book for everyone who wants to write clearly about any subject and use writing as a means of learning.

This practical handbook examines the gap between high school and college-level writing instruction, providing teachers with guidance for helping their students make the transition, including strategies for dealing with the many challenges of the writing classroom.

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.

The concept of writing as process has revolutionized the way many view composition, and this book is organized by the stages of that process. Each section begins with a well-known author presenting specific techniques, followed by commentaries which include testimonials, applications of writing techniques, and descriptions of strategy modifications all contributed by classroom teachers. The book includes the following sections and initial chapters: Section 1 (The Process): "Teaching Writing as a Process" (Catherine D'Aoust); Section 2 (Prewriting): "Clustering: A Prewriting Process" (Gabriele Lusser Rico); Section 3 (Prewriting in Different Subjects): "Prewriting Assignments Across the Curriculum" (Jim Lee); Section 4 (Showing, Not Telling): "A Training Program for Student Writers" (Rebekah Caplan); Section 5 (Using Cooperative Learning to Facilitate Writing): "Using Structures to Promote Cooperative Learning in Writing" (Jeanne M. Stone and Spencer S. Kagan); Section 6 (Writing): "Developing a Sense of Audience, or Who Am I Really Writing This Paper For?" (Mark K. Healy); Section 7 (Teaching Writing in the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classroom): "English Learners and Writing: Responding to Linguistic Diversity" (Robin Scarcella); Section 8 (Domains of Writing): "Teaching the Domains of Writing" (Nancy McHugh); Section 9 (Writing the Saturation Report): "Using Fictional Techniques for Nonfiction Writing" (Ruby Bernstein); Section 10 (Point of View in Writing): "A Lesson on Point of View...That Works" (Carol Booth Olson); Section 11 (Writing the I-Search Paper): "The Reawakening of Curiosity: Research Papers as Hunting Stories" (Ken Macrorie); Section 12 (Critical Thinking and Writing): "Reforming Your Teaching for Thinking: The Studio Approach" (Dan Kirby); Section 13 (Sharing/Responding): "Some Guidelines for Writing-Response Groups" (Peter Elbow); Section 14 (Reader Responses): "Dialogue with a Text" (Robert E. Probst); Section 15 (RAGs for Sharing/Responding): "Using Read-Around Groups to Establish Criteria for Good Writing" (Jenee Gossard); Section 16 (Rewriting/Editing): "Competence for Performance in Revision" (Sheridan Blau); Section 17 (Revising for Correctness): "Some Basics That Really Do Lead to Correctness" (Irene Thomas); Section 18 (Building Vocabularies): "Word-Sprouting: A Vocabulary-Building Strategy for Remedial Writers" (Barbara Morton); Section 19 (Evaluation): "Holistic Scoring in the Classroom" (Glenn Patchell); and Section 20 (Evaluation Techniques): "Some Techniques for Oral Evaluation" (Michael O'Brien). Contains over 100 references. (EF)

Using a rich array of research-based practices, this book will help teachers improve the academic writing of English learners. It provides specific teaching strategies, activities, and extended lessons to develop E Learner students' narrative, informational, and argumentative writing, emphasized in the Common Core State Standards. It also explores the challenges each of these genres pose for English Learners and suggests ways to scaffold instruction to help students become confident and competent academic writers. Showcasing the work of exemplary school teachers who have devoted time and expertise to creating rich learning environments for the secondary classroom Helping English Learners Write includes artifacts and written work produced by students with varying levels of language proficiency as models of what students can accomplish. Each chapter begins with a brief overview and ends with a short summary of the key points.

If you want to learn how to shoot a basketball, you begin by carefully observing someone who knows how to shoot a basketball. If you want to be a writer, you begin by carefully observing the work of accomplished writers. Recognizing the importance that modeling plays in the learning process, high school English teacher Kelly Gallagher shares how he gets his students to stand next to and pay close attention to model writers, and how doing so elevates his students' writing abilities. Write Like This is built around a central premise: if students are to grow as writers, they need to read good writing, they need to study good writing, and, most important, they need to emulate good writers. In Write Like This, Kelly emphasizes real-world writing purposes, the kind of writing he wants his students to be doing twenty years from now. Each chapter focuses on a specific discourse: express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and judge, inquire and explore, analyze and interpret, and take a stand/propose a solution. In teaching these lessons, Kelly provides mentor texts (professional samples as well as models he has written in front of his students), student writing samples, and numerous assignments and strategies proven to elevate student writing. By helping teachers bring effective modeling practices into their classrooms, Write Like This enables students to become better adolescent writers. More important, the practices found in this book will help our students develop the writing skills they will need to become adult writers in the real world.