Children have voices that need to be heard and ideas that need to be understood. Building on this premise Sarah describes why you should try a persuasive writing unit of study, describes two units of study for the primary classroom, and lists tips and ideas for helping students get their persuasive writing out into the world. A Quick Guide to Teaching Persuasive Writing is part of the Workshop Help Desk series. About the Workshop Help Desk series The Workshop Help Desk series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your writers, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the Workshop Help Desk series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, videos, frequently asked questions and more, visit UnitsofStudy.com.

Why you need a writing revolution in your classroom and how to lead it The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback. Insurmountable as the challenges faced by many students may seem, The Writing Revolution can make a dramatic difference. And the method does more than improve writing skills. It also helps: Boost reading comprehension Improve organizational and study skills Enhance speaking abilities Develop analytical capabilities The Writing Revolution is as much a method of teaching content as it is a method of teaching writing. There's no separate writing block and no separate writing curriculum. Instead, teachers of all subjects adapt the TWR strategies and activities to their current curriculum and weave them into their content instruction. But perhaps what's most revolutionary about the TWR method is that it takes the mystery out of learning to write well. It breaks the writing process down into manageable chunks and then has students practice the chunks they need, repeatedly, while also learning content.

Hilarious notes between a son and his mom show how kid logic can be very persuasive. Alex just has to convince his mom to let him have an iguana, so he puts his arguments in writing. He promises that she won't have to feed it or clean its cage or even see it if she doesn't want to. Of course Mom imagines life with a six-foot-long iguana eating them out of house and home. Alex's reassures her: It takes fifteen years for an iguana to get that big. I'll be married by then and probably living in my own house His mom's reply: How are you going to get a girl to marry you when you own a giant reptile? Kis will be in hysterics as the negotiations go back and forth through notes, and the lively, imaginative illustrations showing their polar opposite dreams of life with an iguana take the humor to even higher heights.

"In Lisa Cleaveland's classroom, writing workshop is a time every day when her students make books. Katie Wood Ray guides you through the first days in Lisa's classroom, offering ideas, information, strategies, and tips to show you step by step how you can launch a writing workshop with beginning writers."--book cover

In A Quick Guide to Reaching Struggling Writers Colleen Cruz shows how to stop struggling with writers who struggle. You'll find effective support for students who say: I'm not a good writer; My hand hurts; I don't know how to spell; I don't have anything to write about; I never get to write anything I want to write; I'm done. A Quick Guide to Reaching Struggling Writers is part of the Workshop Help Desk series. About the Workshop Help Desk series The Workshop Help Desk series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your writers, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the Workshop Help Desk series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, videos, frequently asked questions and more, visit UnitsofStudy.com.

Mastering second grade reading and writing is fun and exciting with this book that combines language arts activities with puzzles and humor to lower the barriers to learning and build essential skills. Reading and writing are two of the most important building blocks for future learning, and Highlights(TM) brings Fun with a Purpose® into these essential activities for second graders. Our award-winning content blends reading and writing skills with puzzles, humor, and playful art, which makes learning exciting and fun. Second grade reading and writing skills such as phonics, word recognition, and key ideas will help students improve and will build confidence in the classroom.

In this highly readable and provocative book, Thomas Newkirk explodes the long standing habit of opposing abstract argument with telling stories. Newkirk convincingly shows that effective argument is already a kind of narrative and is deeply "entwined with narrative." --Gerald Graff, former MLA President and author of Clueless in Academe Narrative is regularly considered a type of writing-often an "easy" one, appropriate for early grades but giving way to argument and analysis in later grades. This groundbreaking book challenges all that. It invites readers to imagine narrative as something more-as the primary way we understand our world and ourselves. "To deny the centrality of narrative is to deny our own nature," Newkirk explains. "We seek companionship of a narrator who maintains our attention, and perhaps affection. We are not made for objectivity and pure abstraction-for timelessness. We have 'literary minds" that respond to plot, character, and details in all kind of writing. As humans, we must tell stories." When we are engaged readers, we are following a story constructed by the author, regardless of the type of writing. To sustain a reading-in a novel, an opinion essay, or a research article- we need a "plot" that helps us comprehend specific information, or experience the significance of an argument. As Robert Frost reminds us, all good memorable writing is "dramatic." Minds Made for Stories is a needed corrective to the narrow and compartmentalized approaches often imposed on schools-approaches which are at odds with the way writing really works outside school walls.