Recommended by the Ontario Ministry of Education

This book is a heartening invitation to bring new life into reading-writing workshops. Calkins has woven insights, practical suggestions, references, and anecdotes into this inspirational story of a community of educators who have pushed back the frontiers of what we know about teaching writing and reading.

Personal in approach and comprehensive in presentation, this book includes:

  • the story of how writers' notebooks and a new attention to rehearsal have led to important revisions in many writing workshops
  • major chapters on establishing courses of study in which children read and write memoir, nonfiction, and picturebooks
  • a new look at the qualities of good writing and ways we can help children grow into them
  • references to the best of children's literature and to ways these books can enrich our classrooms
  • an invitation to pioneer new ideas about conferring, record keeping, mini-lessons, and organizational structures for the workshop.