- We imagine you picked up this book
because you want to become a better writing teacher.
Here's how this book will help you with your goal.
First, the book contains over 50 high-impact actions
that you can do to work on important aspects
of the way you teach writing.
You can do many of the actions in your classroom,
as you work with students.
Others you can do outside your classroom by yourself,
or preferably with colleagues.
All of the actions are ones that we have done ourselves
as teachers, with the teachers we work with in schools
around the world, or both.
What's in Chapters 1-9
- In this chapter, we'll describe a roadmap
for using the book, depending on your current level
of experience as a writing teacher.
Have you been teaching writing for a few years,
for a decade or more, or are you a new writing teacher?
We'll help you envision a path forward.
Then in chapters two through nine, you'll find the actions.
They're grouped in such a way that they'll help you
align your classroom practice to key principles
of learning and teaching writing.
For example, chapter two contains actions that will help you
create the conditions for engagement
in your writing workshop.
Chapter five has actions that will help you become
a curriculum decision maker, and the actions in chapter six
will help you help students learn from authors.
Video and Online Resources
- In many of the actions, we refer to videos of us teaching
primary and upper grade students key lessons
you can add to your repertoire.
In other videos, we model the kinds of discussions
that will help you get better at various aspects of writing.
You'll find all of these videos in the online resources.
The book also comes with a robust package
of other online resources
that we suggest you use in many actions.
These online resources include diagnostic forms,
record keeping forms, assessment guides,
forms for projecting or designing units of study,
tools for helping you compose great lessons, and much more.
- The process of becoming a better
writing teacher takes time.
We imagine that this is a book you'll live with for a while,
hopefully with colleagues in your school.
We hope you'll find an action, or several actions,
that you'll try out and get better at over a period
of days or weeks.
Later, you'll work on other actions.
All the while, you'll be working towards your goal
of becoming a better writing teacher,
so that your students grow more and more as writers
in the precious time they spend with you.