Developing Self Confidence In Young Writers

How many times as a teacher have you heard the cry 'But I don't know what to write'? This all too familiar fear of the blank page can be overcome by using the wealth of practical suggestions for helping children to feel more confident as they strive to master the complex combination of skills that make up the craft of writing. Steve Bowkett, an experienced author and writer, suggests a two-pronged attack: giving children a toolkit of techniques for generating and organising ideas of their own, coupled with methods for perceiving themselves as writers - all designed to boost self-esteem and self-confidence. This book will help to motivate children (Primary and Lower Secondary) towards becoming more creative, confident and effective writers - an attitude that will lead to beneficial effects in many other areas of learning too.

How many times as a teacher have you heard the cry 'But I don't know what to write'? This all too familiar fear of the blank page can be overcome by using the wealth of practical suggestions for helping children to feel more confident as they strive to master the complex combination of skills that make up the craft of writing. Steve Bowkett, an experienced author and writer, suggests a two-pronged attack: giving children a toolkit of techniques for generating and organising ideas of their own, coupled with methods for perceiving themselves as writers - all designed to boost self-esteem and self-confidence. This book will help to motivate children (Primary and Lower Secondary) towards becoming more creative, confident and effective writers - an attitude that will lead to beneficial effects in many other areas of learning too.

The new edition of Ken Hyland’s text provides an authoritative guide to writing theory, research, and teaching. Emphasising the dynamic relationship between scholarship and pedagogy, it shows how research feeds into teaching practice. Teaching and Researching Writing introduces readers to key conceptual issues in the field today and reinforces their understanding with detailed cases, then offers tools for further investigating areas of interest. This is the essential resource for students of applied linguistics and language education to acquire and operationalise writing research theories, methods, findings, and practices––as well as for scholars and practitioners looking to learn more about writing and literacy. New to the fourth edition: Added or expanded coverage of important topics such as translingualism, digital literacies and technologies, multimodal and social media writing, action research, teacher reflection, curriculum design, teaching young learners, and discipline-specific and profession-specific writing. Updated throughout––including revision to case studies and classroom practices––and discussion of Rhetorical Genre Studies, intercultural rhetoric, and expertise. Reorganised References and Resources section for ease of use for students, researchers, and teachers.

Summer With My Sister is a fascinating tale of family secrets and hidden rivalries by bestselling author Lucy Diamond. Polly has always been the high-flier of the family, with the glamorous city lifestyle to match. Clare is a single mum with two children, struggling to make ends meet in a ramshackle cottage. The two sisters are poles apart and barely on speaking terms. But then Polly's fortunes change unexpectedly and her world comes crashing down. Left penniless and with nowhere else to go, she's forced back to the village where she and Clare grew up, and the sisters find themselves living together for the first time in years. With an old flame reappearing for Polly, a blossoming new career for Clare and a long-buried family secret in the mix, sparks are sure to fly. Unless the two women have more in common than they first thought?

Developing Thinking Skills Through Creative Writing: Story Steps for 9-12 Year Olds is a practical and easy-to-use teacher resource helping children across a wide age and ability range to develop the skills necessary to write more effectively. Step-by-step instructions encourage children to tackle tasks of increasing difficulty while broadening their knowledge and experiences of fictional genres. With chapters separated into distinct genres: ghost story, fantasy, science fiction, history, pirate story, thriller and Gothic horror, this book: Offers a summary at the start of each chapter to help teachers select the relevant activities. Covers multiple aspects of storytelling from narrative structure, plots, characters and settings to vocabulary, word choice, sentence structure and punctuation. Provides a cross referencing grid showing which aspects of writing appear in each chapter. Includes guidance notes, extension activities and general tips. Adaptable to different teaching situations, this book offers the opportunity for teachers to work through the book genre by genre or take a 'skills route' with different activities from different chapters to create their own programme of study. Fully illustrated and supporting the requirements of the National Curriculum, Developing Thinking Skills Through Creative Writing is a valuable aid for all Key Stage 2 teachers.

After serving in Congress for more than thirty years as both a congresswoman and a senator, Senator Boxer has proven herself to be a passionate advocate for significant issues of our time, including the military, civil rights, universal health care, and the environment. With a who's who of politics of the past three decades, Boxer shows all of the machinations that it takes to make government work, much of it off the record. Featuring figures beloved and reviled, Boxer's memoir takes us behind the scenes to show us what it has been like to deal with George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell, as well as Tip O'Neill, the Clintons, Obama, and so many more. Raised in a Jewish, working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, Boxer was a journalist who decided she could make a difference and ran for local office in California, inspired to fight tooth and nail to help bring that American dream of "a more perfect union" into fruition. Behind closed doors in secret negotiating rooms, Boxer has seen it all: petty squabbling, bare-knuckled dysfunctional debate, and vicious character assassinations. Drawing back the curtain, she leads readers in a master class in statecraft, revealing the truth behind controversial policies, temperamental elected officials, and sensational media headlines that have dominated our national discourse. In this passionate, heartfelt testament to one woman's life's work to improve democracy for all, Senator Boxer offers her views on how American government is flawed and can be rescued to ultimately flourish, but only with the full participation of the nation at large.

While many educational books focus on creative and critical thinking skills, this ground-breaking work is the first to deal specifically with the ability to understand, question and evaluate information presented, broadly speaking, in story form. Story or narrative is central to our understanding of and interaction with the world around us. We only have to think of the ‘mini stories’ encapsulated in many advertisements; the way that topics in science – the story of human evolution for example, in history and other subjects present themselves; the power of myths and legends to act as guides to moral behaviour; and the pervasive way that gossip, rumour and superstition can spread – to recognise the benefits of heightening such awareness in young learners. Understanding the World Through Narrative explores the narrative structure of fiction, but uses this as a template to show how the story form appears in mythology and modern urban folklore, science, history, the media – including advertising; in our internal dialogues (stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others), and how narrative structure can be used in curriculum planning to enhance children’s learning. The book contains over 160 thinking/discussing/researching activities for use in the classroom and as project work. Chapters can be used independently, although they are arranged with increasing degrees of sophistication and challenge. This fascinating work is an essential resource for any teacher of upper primary and lower secondary students, covering not only children’s evolving intellectual ability and promoting curiosity and critical engagement but also enhancing their mental and emotional wellbeing.

Step-by-Step Skill-Builders for Your Classroom. make reading and writing more meaningful to children, with author studies! This photo-filled guide supports you through every step in the process: choosing author, nurturing independent readers, celebrating writers with innovative projects, setting up author visits, assessment, and more.