Powerful Writing Structures

This timely book uses thinking structures to deepen student writing. It revolves around “brain pockets” to help students appreciate the qualities of different writing forms. Some powerful examples include memory pockets for personal narrative writing, fact pockets for nonfiction, and imagination pockets for story writing. Detailed lesson plans are featured along with sample anchor books and book lists. Based on extensive classroom testing, student samples throughout the book illustrate this unique approach to teaching writing. Suggestions for setting up an effective writing program and assessment tips for guiding instruction complete this comprehensive approach to developing a year-long writing program.

Teaching Tough Topics shows teachers how to lead students to become caring citizens as they read and respond to quality children’s literature. It focuses on topics that can be challenging or sensitive, yet are significant in order to build understanding of social justice, diversity, and equity. Racism, Homophobia, Bullying, Religious Intolerance, Poverty, and Physical and Mental Challenges are just some of the themes explored. The book is rooted in the belief that by using picture books, novels, poetry, and nonfiction, teachers can enrich learning with compassion and empathy as students make connections to texts, to others, and to the world.

Jack Hart, master writing coach and former managing editor of the Oregonian, has guided several Pulitzer Prize–winning narratives to publication. Since its publication in 2011, his book Storycraft has become the definitive guide to crafting narrative nonfiction. This is the book to read to learn the art of storytelling as embodied in the work of writers such as David Grann, Mary Roach, Tracy Kidder, and John McPhee. In this new edition, Hart has expanded the book’s range to delve into podcasting and has incorporated new insights from recent research into storytelling and the brain. He has also added dozens of new examples that illustrate effective narrative nonfiction. This edition of Storycraft is also paired with Wordcraft, a new incarnation of Hart’s earlier book A Writer’s Coach, now also available from Chicago.

Help young writers learn to engage and invite their reader's thinking with five key thinking strategies - connect, question, visualize, infer, and transform.

Writing nonfiction is a key skill that students will need throughout their school lives, and beyond. This remarkable book is designed to help teachers develop a writing program that will enable their students to harness all of their Nonfiction Writing Powers: to Describe, to Instruct, to Compare, to Persuade, to Explain, and to Report. It illustrates ways to encourage students to write because they have something to say, and to recognize that writing well means considering intent and purpose, and choosing the best form of expression. Ideal for teaching writing in the content areas, the book includes guidance on linking writing forms to Science, Social Studies, and other subject areas.

Powerful Poetry celebrates the beauty, power, and pleasure of poetry in the classroom. This highly-readable book outlines the many benefits of integrating poetry into your literacy program, including building reading, writing, and speaking skills, nurturing creativity, and celebrating language. Powerful Poetry provides practical, enjoyable lessons for integrating poetry into your year-long literacy program and engaging ways to introduce poetic structure, language, tools, and devices. Book lists introduce a wide range of wonderful poems and poets. Ideal for new and experienced teachers who are looking to bring the power of poetry into their classroom.

Don't limit your fiction - LIBERATE IT All too often, following the "rules" of writing can constrict rather than inspire you. With Story Trumps Structure, you can shed those rules - about three-act structure, rising action, outlining, and more - to craft your most powerful, emotional, and gripping stories. Award-winning novelist Steven James explains how to trust the narrative process to make your story believable, compelling, and engaging, and debunks the common myths that hold writers back from creating their best work. • Ditch your outline and learn to write organically. • Set up promises for readers - and deliver on them. • Discover how to craft a satisfying climax. • Master the subtleties of characterization. • Add mind-blowing twists to your fiction. When you focus on what lies at the heart of story - tension, desire, crisis, escalation, struggle, discovery - rather than plot templates and formulas, you'll begin to break out of the box and write fiction that resonates with your readers. Story Trumps Structure will transform the way you think about stories and the way you write them, forever.