Writing+Resources


 * Grade Level || Description || Title/Link ||
 * PreK- 1 || Based on strong understandings of developmentally appropriate practices, the authors have created and explained a continuum designed to assess what very young children know about oral language, drawing, and writing. This new, well-researched, and easy-to-use assessment tool helps teachers determine powerful next literacy steps and instruction for their young students. Many writing, drawing, and construction examples and vignettes of conversations between teachers and children show what best practices look and sound like in instructional settings for three- to six-year-old learners. Selected visuals and data-gathering forms will help educators in early literacy settings get the most out of developmentally appropriate instruction.

This book for pre-kindergarten and early primary teachers describes a comprehensive and developmentally appropriate approach to working with fiction and nonfiction texts through playing at reading and introduces a formative assessment tool designed to determine how beginning readers engage with books print. As in the companion book, Assessing and Teaching Beginning Writers, the authors explore ways to develop students proficiency in oral language and attention to detail. || [|Assessing And Teaching Beginning Writers: Every Picture Tells a Story by David Matteson]

[|Assessing And Teaching Beginning Readers: A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words by David M. Matteson and Deborah K. Freeman] || In clear language, Fletcher and Portalupi explain the simple principles that underlie the writing workshop and explore the major components that make it work. Each chapter addresses an essential element, then suggests five or six specific things a teacher can do to implement the idea under discussion. There's also a separate chapter entitled "What About Skills," which shows how to effectively teach skills in the context of writing. The book closes with practical forms in the appendixes to ensure that the workshop runs smoothly. || [|Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide by Ralph Fletcher] ||
 * K-2 || Nonfiction inspires enthusiasm in young children because they can choose topics that are of interest to them personally. //Is That a Fact?// explores a variety of authentic purposes for writing nonfiction, such as describing, explaining, instructing, persuading, retelling, and exploring relationships with others. You will learn how to introduce each purpose using a variety of forms, including letters, reports, poetry, captions, directions, and interviews. || [|Is that a fact?] ||
 * K-6 || How do children's book authors create the wonder that we feel when reading our favorite books? What can students and teachers learn from these authors and books if we let them serve as writing mentors? In //Mentor Texts//, Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli show teachers how to help students become confident, accomplished writers, using literature as their foundation.The book is organized around the characteristics of good writing focus, content, organization, style, and conventions and includes:
 * mentor texts that can be used to scaffold student work;
 * student writing examples to demonstrate how students take risks as writers;
 * teacher writing examples to show the power of teacher as writer;
 * a comprehensive annotated list of children's literature that includes specific suggestions for teaching points;
 * Your Turn lessons at the end of each chapter that show how to put the ideas into practice. || Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6 ||
 * Gr. 2-6 || Above all //Writing Workshop// is a practical book, providing everything a teacher needs to get the writing workshop up and running.
 * Gr. 2-6 || Above all //Writing Workshop// is a practical book, providing everything a teacher needs to get the writing workshop up and running.
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]
 * Gr. 6-8 || This second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading. || [| In the Middle by Nacie Atwell]

Lessons That Change Writers: Lessons with Electronic Binder by Nancy Atwell (specific lessons to pull as needed -- more of a resource than professional read || Designed for middle and high school students, the activities in this book will enable students to //write// strong arguments and //evaluate// the arguments of others. When they are through, students will be able, as the Common Core Standards ask, to "Delineate and evaluate [an] argument and specific claims...including the validity of the reasoning [and] the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence." Developed by **George Hillocks, Jr.** and others in diverse inner city classrooms in Chicago, students are easily engaged in the lively problem-solving approach detailed in this book. || Writing [|an Argument] || Infused with humor and illuminating anecdotes, Kelly draws on his classroom experiences and work as co-director of a regional writing project to offer teachers both practical ways to incorporate writing instruction into their day and compelling reasons to do so. || [|Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher] ||
 * Gr. 6-12 || Argument writing can be difficult to teach, but it may be the most important set of skills we teach in English. According to the National Common Core Standards, by the end of high school, students should be able to write arguments to support claims with clear reason and relevant evidence-and they should be able to do so //well//.
 * [| Gr. 6-12] ||  || [| Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide]by ||
 * Gr. 6-12 || 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. || [| Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts by Kelly Gallagher] ||
 * Gr. 6-12 || //In Teaching Adolescent Writers//, Kelly Gallagher, author of //Reading Reasons// and //Deeper Reading//, shows how students can be taught to write effectively. Kelly shares a number of classroom-tested strategies that enable teachers to:* understand the importance of teaching writing;
 * motivate young writers;
 * see the importance modeling plays in building young writers (modeling from both the teacher and from real-world text);
 * understand how providing choice elevates adolescent writing (and how to allow for choice within a rigorous curriculum);
 * help students recognize the importance of purpose and audience;
 * assess essays in ways that drive better writing performance.