This book illustrates how teachers of elementary-age writers bring their beliefs about teaching and learning to life--through the visions they hold for writers, writing, and the world, as well as through the decisions they make every day in their classrooms. Teachers today face contextual challenges and pressures that may conflict with their visions of effective teaching. Katie Van Sluys demonstrates how to (re)claim our professional practice to ensure that young people have the opportunity to become competent, constantly growing writers who use writing to think, communicate, and pose as well as solve problems. Using NCTE's Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing as a starting point for understandings about writing research and what it can tell us about effective writing practices in elementary classrooms, Van Sluys invites us to articulate our own beliefs as we explore why and what we write, how we write and how we teach, how we assess progress, and how we advocate for the practices we believe in. Through real classroom examples and teacher and student reflections, she helps us understand how the decisions that both we and our students make today can help them not only learn to write well but also to use writing to create the world they want to live in.

The Second Edition of Becoming a Teacher of Writing in Elementary Classrooms is an interactive learning experience focusing on all aspects of becoming-writer and teacher of writing in the Writing Studio. The Writing Studio is illustrated with authentic classroom scenarios and include descriptions of assessments, mini-lessons, mentor texts, and collaborative and individual teaching strategies. The parallel text, Becoming-Writer, allows readers to engage as writers while learning and applying writing process, practice, and craft of the Writing Studio. The new edition includes integration of preschool writers, multilingual learners, translanguaging, culturally sustaining pedagogy, social emotional learning, Universal Design for Learning and an updated companion website with teacher resources. This dynamic text supports teachers’ agency in the ongoing journey of joyful teaching and writing.

Writing Workshop in the Elementary Classroom is a culmination of the authors’ work with students and writing for collectively over 35 years. Teaching writing using a workshop methodology can be exciting as it is an interactive approach to writing, but it can also be challenging as it is not the traditional teacher directed whole class lessons that many test preparation curriculums tout. The book takes the reader through the stages of the writing process in the first part, explaining what students are doing and thinking in each stage. In the second part, the authors explain how to manage students, materials, mini lessons, grading and other aspects that help writing workshop classrooms run smoothly. To help with the transition to a workshop method, readers are asked to keep a journal wherein they plan what they will do in their classrooms.

"The Handbook of Reading Research is the research handbook for the field. Each volume has come to define the field for the period of time it covers ... When taken as a set, the four volumes provide a definitive history of reading research"--Back of cover, volume 4.

Work with students at all levels to help them read novels Whole Novels is a practical, field-tested guide to implementing a student-centered literature program that promotes critical thinking and literary understanding through the study of novels with middle school students. Rather than using novels simply to teach basic literacy skills and comprehension strategies, Whole Novels approaches literature as art. The book is fully aligned with the Common Core ELA Standards and offers tips for implementing whole novels in various contexts, including suggestions for teachers interested in trying out small steps in their classrooms first. Includes a powerful method for teaching literature, writing, and critical thinking to middle school students Shows how to use the Whole Novels approach in conjunction with other programs Includes video clips of the author using the techniques in her own classroom This resource will help teachers work with students of varying abilities in reading whole novels.

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.

Offers advice to teachers on how to conduct writing workshops, providing a rationale for writing workshops, looking at what they have in common across grade levels, and discussing the tone of workshop teaching, getting started with independent writing time, curriculum, focus lessons, assessment and evaluation, and other topics.