Teaching Writing Grades 7-12 in an Era of Assessment


Book Description

A practical guide written by teachers, for teachers, this book provides authentic, proven practices in the teaching of writing, along with samples of student writing, grades 7--12, and integrating Common Core State Standards within a comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum. Teaching Writing Grades 7--12 in an Era of Assessment is an ideal guide for those who have not had access to professional development in teaching writing. In it, readers get the benefit of hearing first hand from real teachers teaching real students. In addition to presenting detailed, specific pedagogy appropriate for seventh grade, eighth grade, and high school students, the book also addresses a wide range of students, including English Language Learners and reluctant writers and readers.




Write Now & Write On, Grades 6-12


Book Description

From social media to school success—take student writing to the next level! Your students may not realize it, but they’re already writers. All those informal text messages, Instagram captions, and Facebook posts have given them skills they can use as a springboard to the formal, content-specific writing they’ll need for success in school, college, and careers. The key, of course, is practice—plus a little guidance from you. And you’ll be ready, no matter what subject you teach, because this essential reference is packed with relevant, contemporary teaching strategies that are easily customizable to work across content areas. Inside, you’ll find: Engaging exercises based in the kinds of writing students already do Versatile "parachute writings"—quick bursts of practice to drop into a day’s lesson Strategies for introducing academic vocabulary and making it stick Skill-boosting strategies for successful summarizing and using textual evidence Variations specific to all disciplines and content areas Students should be writing daily, in all their classes, and they should be writing a lot, both inside and outside school. With this practical guide, you’ll be ready to help them up their writing game—and make literacy relevant, valuable, and authentic.




Every Child Can Write, Grades 2-5


Book Description

Empowering striving writers to thrive as writers! Somehow, in every classroom during every year, there are students who keep us up at night because of the instructional challenges they face as writers. These students—our striving writers—may find success exploring different entry points and pathways than those their classmates travel. Every Child Can Write will help you lead striving writers along their journey toward growth, confidence, and success. Filled with practical strategies, classroom-management ideas,and reproducible tools, this book also offers low- and high-tech solutions for increasing writing volume and boosting self-esteem. Plus, with suggestions for differentiating instruction based on standards and student needs, it will help you: Implement principles of UDL to optimize your classroom environment and student learning; Identify and honor students’ strengths throughout your writing instruction; Maximize the power of formative assessment to set goals with students; and Integrate the most appropriate technology that empowers students and leads them to independence. As essential as writing is in elementary school, it will be even more important when your students reach middle school. Now is the time to give them the skills, practice, and confidence they need to succeed. As we know, in distance learning caregivers and teachers partner more than ever to help students with writing. The Distance Learning companion to Every Child Can Write is for teachers to share with caregivers to help children develop their writing lives—even while learning at home. Each of the eight modules contains video clips that talk caregivers through tools for supporting their student writers, along with downloadable tools that can be used by teachers or caregivers.







Literacy Tools in the Classroom


Book Description

This innovative resource describes how teachers can help students employ "literacy tools" across the curriculum to foster learning. The authors demonstrate how literacy tools such as narratives, question-asking, spoken-word poetry, drama, writing, digital communication, images, and video encourage critical inquiry in the 5-12 classroom. The book provides many examples and adaptable lessons from diverse classrooms and connects to an active Website where readers can join a growing professional community, share ideas, and get frequent updates: http://literacytooluses.pbworks.com




Writing, Grades 5 - 12


Book Description

Write on! Write with students in grades 5 and up using Writing: Fundamentals for the Middle-School Classroom. This 128-page book helps students learn how to express themselves through writing. It provides open-ended lessons of personal writing, descriptive writing, short stories, poetry, and reports. This excellent classroom supplement also includes chapters arranged in order of increasing difficulty and activities that allow students to choose their own writing topics. It supports Common Core State Standards, NCTE and IRA standards.




Transforming Writing Instruction in the Digital Age


Book Description

An innovative, practical guide for middle and high school teachers, this book is packed with specific ways that technology can help serve the goals of effective writing instruction. It provides ready-to-implement strategies for teaching students to compose and edit written work electronically; conduct Internet inquiry; create blogs, websites, and podcasts; and use text messaging and Twitter productively. The book is grounded in state-of-the-art research on the writing process and the role of writing in content-area learning. Teacher-friendly features include vivid classroom examples, differentiation tips, links to online resources, and reproducible worksheets and forms. The large-size format facilitates photocopying.




Don't Forget to Write for the Elementary Grades


Book Description

Creative strategies for getting young students excited about writing Don't Forget to Write for the Elementary Grades offers 50 creative writing lesson plans from the imaginative and highly acclaimed 826 National writing labs. Created as a resource to reach all students (even those most resistant to creative writing), the lessons range from goofy fun (like "The Other Toy Story: Make Your Toys Come to Life") to practical, from sports to science, music to mysteries. These lessons are written by experts, and favorite novelists, actors, and other celebrities pitched in too. Lessons are linked to the Common Core State Standards. A treasure trove of proven, field-tested lessons to teach writing skills Inventive and unique lessons will appeal to even the most difficult-to-reach students 826 National has locations in eight cities: San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and Washington DC 826 National is a nonprofit organization, founded by Dave Eggers, and committed to supporting teachers, publishing student work, and offering services for English language learners.




Reading with Writing in Mind


Book Description

Good writing begins with good reading. This book is written on the premise that students must embrace reading as a part of the full process of good writing. It may be used by classroom teachers (Grades 6-12) individually or collectively as members of a professional learning community, by pre-service teachers in a literacy course, or by other educators working to support literacy in the classroom. Interdisciplinary discussions relate to all types or genres of reading and writing. This book offers practical lessons and ideas for teaching and motivating all learners using Universal Design for Learning principles. Formatting provides additional ideas for challenged students, including students with special needs, accelerated learners, and English Language Learners, and is aligned with Common Core State Standards for content subjects as well as for language arts. It takes ideas that were formerly reserved for the upper echelon of students in English language arts and reformulates teaching approaches to reach students across the learning spectrum and in all disciplines. All teachers need to be involved in raising the literacy bar, and this book provides activities and strategies for use in the classroom that can promote success for all learners.




Learning Through Writing: Grade 5


Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2009 ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHERS' DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD AND THE 2010 TEACHERS' CHOICE AWARD FOR THE CLASSROOM! Use writing to teach the content areas! Check students content-area knowledge, writing skills, and critical thinking at the same time! Fun, authentic writing activities for language arts, math, science, social studies, and health/nutrition take students through the entire writing process, from brainstorming to publishing, while letting imaginations soar. This content-area writing series includes one grade-level book each for third, fourth, and fifth grade, offering the flexibility to pick from a variety of activities. Choose the activities from each grade that appeal most to your students, or use only the book for your grade to match your students skill levels and target grade-appropriate content-area topics and writing skills. Each ready-to-go activity includes lesson plans, extensions, rubrics, student worksheets, and examples clearly lists objectives, materials and teacher preparation needed, and what prior knowledge and skills are being targeted is easily di fferentiated to meet students needs can be used on its own, with other content-area activities, or as class time allows connects to national content-area and writing standards reflects grade-appropriate language and writing skills Publishing ideas, bibliographies, student checklists, and correlations to commonly taught writing standards and craft skills make this resource complete and easy to use. You ll never run out of authentic ways to make learning through writing fun.