Authors in the Classroom


Book Description

Explores the contradictions between what is expected of teachers and the education and support they have received, and provides teachers with advice on how to teach writing and generate their students' interest in writing.




Because Writing Matters


Book Description

This updated edition of the best-selling book Because Writing Matters reflects the most recent research and reports on the need for teaching writing, and it includes new sections on writing and English language learners, technology, and the writing process.




The Writing Revolution


Book Description

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.




Developing Young Writers in the Classroom


Book Description

Educators want young people to grow up knowing that writing is an important and deeply satisfying life skill, one that helps them make more sense of themselves and their world, and one that helps them to communicate effectively. Sadly, too often writing becomes merely an exercise in ‘getting words right’, or writing to teacher-prescribed tasks. Developing Young Writers in the Classroom explores the principles of developing literacy through authorship, allowing children to describe, question and celebrate their own experiences and personal creativity. The book offers detailed guidance, supported by planning documents, poetry and prose, examples of children’s work and stimulating visuals. Inspiring topics explored include: creating a classroom environment which supports an independent writer students’ lives brought into the classroom finding significance in our experiences the use of memoir for recording experiences description in all kinds of writing choosing and writing about a character writing in all curriculum areas linking reading and writing using other authors as mentors and teachers collaborative learning. Illustrated throughout with accessible activities and ideas from literature and poetry, Developing Young Writers in the Classroom is an essential resource for all teachers wishing to inspire writing in the classroom.




Writers in the Schools


Book Description

For nearly three decades, writers from the University of Arkansas Programs in Creative Writing have traveled to Arkansas's public and private schools to enrich classrooms by contributing a unique dose of teaching methods. The workshops and sessions these writers teach open avenues for student creativity and sharpen students' language skills across the state. Writers in the Schools combines and condenses these proven techniques. The lesson in this valuable text is that the imagination is the greatest tool a student possesses. Instead of lectures, the book relies on hands-on exercises and time-tested activity plans that start students writing within minutes of discussing the basics of the writing process. Included are dozens of ideas to spark student creativity and hone rough drafts into finished poems and short stories.




Teaching Writing in the Content Areas


Book Description

This book examines nearly 30 years of research to identify how teachers can incorporate writing instruction that helps students master the course content and improve their overall achievement. Building on the recommendations of the National Commission on Writing, authors Vicki Urquhart and Monette McIver introduce four critical issues teachers should address when they include writing in their content courses: Creating a positive environment for the feedback and guidance students need at various stages, including prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing; Monitoring and assessing how much students are learning through their writing; Choosing computer programs that best enhance the writing process; Strengthening their knowledge of course content and their own writing skills.




Best Practices in Writing Instruction


Book Description

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.




Year of Blue Water


Book Description

Winner of the 2018 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize How can a search for self‑knowledge reveal art as a site of community? Yanyi’s arresting and straightforward poems weave experiences of immigration as a Chinese American, of racism, of mental wellness, and of gender from a queer and trans perspective. Between the contrast of high lyric and direct prose poems, Yanyi invites the reader to consider how to speak with multiple identities through trauma, transition, and ordinary life. These poems constitute an artifact of a groundbreaking and original author whose work reflects a long journey self‑guided through tarot, therapy, and the arts. Foregrounding the power of friendship, Yanyi’s poems converse with friends as much as with artists both living and dead, from Agnes Martin to Maggie Nelson to Robin Coste Lewis. This instructive collection gives voice to the multifaceted humanity within all of us and inspires attention, clarity, and hope through art-making and community.




Developing Writers of Argument


Book Description

Forming effective arguments is essential to students′ success in academics and in life. This book′s engaging lessons offer an innovative approach to teaching this critical and transferable skill.




Whisper Hollow


Book Description

“Cander is a smart, deft storyteller.” —New York Times Book Review From the nationally bestselling author of The Weight of the Piano comes a novel that “like D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, is about love that finds its object, and love that misses its mark.” —Charles Baxter Set in a small coal-mining town, a debut novel full of secrets, love, betrayal, and suspicious accidents, where Catholicism casts a long shadow and two courageous women make choices that will challenge our own moral convictions. One morning in Verra, a town nestled into the hillsides of West Virginia, the young Myrthen Bergmann is playing tug-of-war with her twin, when her sister is killed. Unable to accept her own guilt, Myrthen excludes herself from all forms of friendship and affection and begins a twisted, haunted life dedicated to God. Meanwhile, her neighbor Alta Krol longs to be an artist even as her days are taken up caring for her widowed father and siblings. Everything changes when Myrthen marries the man Alta loves. Fourteen years later, we meet Lidia, a teenage girl in the same town, and her precocious son, Gabriel. When Gabriel starts telling eerily prescient stories that hint at Verra’s long-buried secrets, it’s not long before the townspeople begin to suspect that the boy harbors evil spirits—an irresistible state of affairs for Myrthen and her obsession with salvation.