For Teachers

A Helpful Boost for Teaching the Writing Process

“Through the years I’ve learned that the most successful writers are those who have learned to think about their process and reflect on their work.”  Louise DeSalvo When I teach writing, I want my students to see the 5-step writing process as a necessary tool to guide, inform and improve their writing. I want them …

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Teaching the Reading Process (with videos)

Teaching the Reading Process (with videos) As a writer of nonfiction, I use the Reading Process to guide my thinking in order to comprehend and then synthesize the information I get from research reading. As a middle school reading teacher, I organized my instruction around that same process. The Reading Process refers to the three …

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One Book. Three Types of Nonfiction: A Lesson For Students on How and Why to Use Different Types of Nonfiction in Their Writing

My picture book biography, Monet Paints a Day, (Charlesbridge, 2011),was written using three different kinds of nonfiction.  This was done because I had so much interesting information to present but wasn’t sure what information to leave in and what to leave out. In short, I faced the decision every writer faces as they move into …

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Teaching Students How to Revise: A First Step

Throughout my years as a writing teacher, I consistently saw that many students didn’t know how to effectively revise.  “My sentences are complete, and I’ve corrected my spelling. I’m done,” they would tell me. But they weren’t.  And even if they had beautiful language, a well-organized beginning, middle and end, and grammatically correct paragraphs, their …

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Four Essential Attributes Every Writer Needs (And Teachers Too!)

Obviously, as a writer, it is important to continually work at understanding your craft and improving your skills. However, to my mind, just as important to literary success is purposefully developing the irreplaceable attributes of a writer’s mindset; patience, perserverance, the ability to reflect, and most important of all, self-forgiveness. Patience: We all know that …

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