Book Description

This book shares the author's discoveries in a first-grade classroom about Family Message Journals--notebooks in which children write a message to their families each day about something they did, learned, or thought about in school, and then a family member writes a message in reply. The book is intended to spur other teachers to reflect on how they might incorporate Family Message Journals into their programs, in their own ways. The author analyzes how two primary grade teachers implement Family Message Journals in their classrooms, illustrating that the journals are a workable, realistic, and effective strategy for literacy and content learning. She focuses on journal entries of four representative students and their families; questions widespread assumptions about teaching writing; and identifies teachers' and families' roles in helping elementary students appropriate new genres, topics, and purposes for writing. The book's 7 chapters are: (1) Challenging Assumptions about Learning To Write and Teaching Writing; (2) Why Family Message Journals? The Intersection of Writing Instruction, Writing To Learn, and Family Involvement; (3) Family Message Journals in the Classroom; (4) Writing for a Purpose: Writing as a Tool across the Curriculum; (5) Writing for an Audience: The Functions of Children's Messages; (6) Families' Perspectives and Replies; and (7) Family Message Journals Document Growth. (Contains 100 references.) (SR)