If You're Trying to Teach Kids How to Write??You've Gotta Have This Book

By Marjorie Frank

This book reinforces the idea that teachers should not "teach" writing but teach writers. Following are some main ideas:

• Teachers must provide an environment where students can take risks with their writing and still feel safe.
• Writing takes many forms, not just "stories" or essays. The book lists 200 alternatives to "write a story".
• Turn kids back into work lovers.
• Don't ask kids to write without giving them input. The example used in the book "First day of spring ö write a poem about spring" produce poor results. The next year the teacher took students outside to "experience" spring, then brainstormed list of sights, sounds, smells, feelings. Kids wrote and wrote producing quality poetry.
• Explained author's 10 step writing process but stresses that it need not be linear and that parts of the process blend together. Process can go back and forth several times during writing.
• Writing "skills" are important too. Plan mini-lessons i.e. adding details and examples, using dialogue, strong beginnings and endings, etc.
• Response and revision go hand-in-hand: response drives the revision and the revision feeds the response. Kids need to be taught to respond. One plan to use is the P-Q-P (praise, question, polish).
• Responses must be specific ö practice this often with the students.
• Sharing the writing is just as important as the other steps in the process. There are a variety of ways to share ö not just standing in front of the class reading the piece, i.e. set it to music and sing it, hang poems on a poem tree, hang it from the ceiling, mount it on a banner, etc.
• Portfolios are not just a collection of writing pieces, but samples chosen for a particular reason, work that shows growth.
• Portfolio should include a letter to readers, a list of the contents, many samples, a variety of kinds of writing, dates, samples that show growth, and reason for collecting particular sample.

The book concludes with a lot of different ideas to use to teach writers. Alternatives to "What I did on My Summer Vacation". I would like to purchase this book and refer to it many times throughout the year. Not only for the ideas presented but to reinforce the idea that teachers should "teach writers" not "teach writing".