Teaching Middle School Writers

"My whole goal with this book was to come at teaching writing from the angle that matters most: students' perspective. They taught me what I needed to know to make this book live up to their passion for writing." Laura Robb Adolescents have robust and rewarding writing lives outside of school that involve journals, emails, text messages, blogs, and an astounding array of genres. Unlike their personal reading lives that teachers frequently tap into, their personal writings typically exist under the curricular radar-that is until now. While grounded in the common schedule constraints and curriculum demands of middle school, Laura Robb's Teaching Middle School Writers offers teachers lessons and routines that are uncommonly attuned to adolescents' developmental and social needs. As she taps into the energy and enthusiasm of adolescents' personal writing lives, Laura presents: writing plans that support first drafts strategies for crafting leads that grab and endings that satisfy grammar lessons that address writing conventions editing lessons that have students revise their writing before the teacher reads it guidelines for grading and responding to student work. Straight-from-the-classroom writing samples and videos give teachers the opportunity to see how Laura uses compelling questions and powerful mentor texts to teach writing, support struggling writers, and weave twenty-first century literacies into the writing curriculum. Throughout, teachers learn ways of connecting to students' lives in order to bring out their best writing, their best self. Watch a video overview.

Effective, easy-to-use tools for trait-based assessment and instruction--just for middle school teachers. Includes printable reproducible forms!

This book, which began as a teacher research project, goes inside the Anne Frank Conference, an online literary exchange among middle school students, to examine how the conference experience has fundamentally changed who the students are as writers. The book provides background by discussing the implementation of the Bread Loaf Rural Teachers Network (BLRTN)--a network of teachers from Arizona, Alaska, Vermont, South Carolina, Mississippi, and New Mexico--which grew from the recognition that rural teachers have limited staff development and collaboration opportunities, as compared to teachers in urban areas, and generally lag behind the educational mainstream in terms of technology and equity of funding. The book also sets the stage by "going to" Europe just prior to World War II and presenting various aspects of the historical period. Then, the book looks closely at the writing itself, using a specific taxonomy developed to better understand the new literacy which is emerging. Noting that the writing that emerged was striking in its quality and honesty, the book finds that individual responses to the "Diary of Anne Frank" grew into an online dialogue about growing up, human nature, literature, life, and more. One particular student's experience as a participant in the Anne Frank Conference is recounted in detail in the book. Finally, some of the implications of the online exchange are discussed in terms of the literacy of the students and of the participating teachers. (NKA)

"Having powerful reasons to write and a teacher who motivates-- a teacher who's tuned into the emotional and academic needs of young adolescents--is a tough order. But it can be done and it makes all of the difference to middle school writers." --Laura Robb In her groundbreaking Teaching Middle School Writers Laura Robbshowed teachers how to use adolescents' interests and motivations to enliven and personalize their academic writing. Robb's new Smart Writing series builds on this foundation offering practical writing units that are uncommonly attuned to middle school writers' social and developmental needs. Providing the language and lessons she has honed over 45 years in the classroom, Robb's eight units of study will help you craft writing instruction that: * taps into adolescents' desire for responsibility, relationships, and choice * guides students step by step through the writing of memoirs; short, short stories; and persuasive, analytical, informative, and compare/contrast essays and free choice writing * aligns with the Common Core's writing genres * includes engaging, age-appropriate mentor texts * is assessment driven and incorporates self and peer evaluations. Smart Writing components: * The Teacher's Guide offers practical tips for using mentor texts; shows how the units fit into a variety of schedules; and explains the benefits of developing writing criteria for teachers and students. * Each of the 8 units of study (5 books) lays out 4 to 6 weeks of instruction and provides the lessons, mentor texts, tools, and grade-specific writing criteria needed to teach the full writing process. * The Resources CD-ROM offers print and video resources including mentor texts, criteria charts, evaluation forms, and student handouts. * The compact Smart Writing Handbook reinforces important lessons and offers tips, rules, and guidelines for students writing on their own.

Tap into your inner writer with this book of practical advice by the bestselling author of How Writers Work and the ALA Notable Book Fig Pudding. Writers are just like everyone else—except for one big difference. Most people go through life experiencing daily thoughts and feelings, noticing and observing the world around them. But writers record these thoughts and observations. They react. And they need a special place to record those reactions. Perfect for classrooms, A Writer’s Notebook gives budding writers a place to keep track of all the little things they notice every day. Young writers will love these useful tips for how to use notes and jottings to create stories and poems of their own.

Veteran teacher Marilyn Pryle knows first hand the challenges of teaching writing workshop in middle school. She has fine-tuned her approach over the years and now shares her classroom-tested strategies in this step-by-step guide. She shows you how to establish routines, set high expectations, plan assignments that balance structure and choice, sequence mini-lessons to maximize students' learning, design rubrics to ease the grading dilemma and encourage revision, and so much more. With management tips, scheduling options, test-prep ideas, ELL supports, and conferencing how-to's, this is the essential resource for teaching writing workshop in middle school!

The Middle School Writing Toolkit addresses the 5 major writing genres that middle-school students are expected to master - reports, persuasive essays, how-to (procedural) essays, narratives, and literary responses - and provides 57 mini-lessons and more than 200 workstation tasks to start English teachers well on their way to creating a successful writing program in the classroom.

Classroom-tested lessons, practice problems, examples, games, and resources cover fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as all aspects of writing (including prewriting, editing, and technique). With step-by-step guidelines, helpful tips from the authors, and numerous writing activities, this book offers myriad options for inspiring your students. Everything you need to make your writing program a success has been incorporated into this treasury. Classroom-tested lessons, practice problems, examples, games, and resources cover fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as all aspects of writing (including prewriting, editing, and technique). With step-by-step guidelines, helpful tips from the authors, and numerous writing activities, this book offers myriad options for inspiring your students.