50 Ways to Develop Strategic Writers

With contributions from master teachers under the guidance of Gail Tompkins, Director of the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project, this book provides clear, step-by-step descriptions of 50 effective, proven strategies for helping learners in Grades 4 - 12 become competent strategic writers. Instructions for each strategy are carefully constructed to enable novice teachers to easily and quickly recreate the lessons and adapt them for many grade and ability levels.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Unlocking the Mysteries of Writing     1.   Assessment Rubrics: Evaluating in Small Groups   2.   Choice: Creating a Positive Attitude About Writing   3.   Classifying Errors: Helping Students Recognize Their Error Patterns   4.   Collaborative Research: Writing from a KWL Chart   5.   Color Coding: Using Color as a Revision Tool   6.   Conferences: Encouraging Students to Talk About Their Writing   7.   Content Analogies: Connecting the Complex with the Familiar   8.   Counting Words: Developing Fluency   9.   Creative Models: Writing Haiku Poetry 10.   Daily Response Journals: Developing Writing Fluency 11.   Double Entry Journals: Promoting Descriptive Writing 12.   Editing Stations: Fine-Tuning Writing 13.   Essay Models: Writing the "Bad Essay" to Understand What is Good 14.   Essential Questions: Creating Focused Writers 15.   Explicit Instruction: Teaching Grammar During Editing 16.   Found Poems: Writing from Personal Journals 17.   Gallery Walk of Questions: Asking Questions to Think Critically 18.   Graphic Analysis Essays: Using Collaborative Questioning 19.   Idea Logs: Recording Thoughts 20.   Developing Sensory Awareness for Observation Writing 21.   Interactive Writing: Teaching Skills in Context 22.   Interactive Writing: Teaching the Power of Dialogue 23.   Key Words: Writing Summary Sentences 24.   Listening Guides: Developing Audience Awareness 25.   Metacognitive Assessment: Reflecting on Writing 26.   Organizing Ideas: Using Inspiration in Prewriting 27.   Persona Profiles: Finding a Point of View 28.   Personal Journals: Writing a Collections of Vignettes 29.   Poetry Models: Learning Literacy Devices 30.   Process Posters: Making the Writing Process Visible 31.   Prompt Creation: Crafting Practice Assessments 32.   Proofreading: Using Direct Instruction to Teach Editing 33.   Published Models: Using Periodicals in the Writing Process 34.   Reflection: Looking Back on Writing 35.   Revision: Clarifying Purpose and Audience 36.   Revision Charts: Analyzing for Essay Organization 37.   Rubrics: Encouraging Metacognitive Thinking 38.   Self-Evaluation: Developing Metacognitive Writers 39.   Sentence Banks: Modeling Sentence Variety 40.   Sentence Combining: Promoting Stylistic Maturity 41.   Sentence Expanding: Teaching Grammar During Editing 42.   Showing Writing: Teaching the Art of Description 43.   Snapshots: Teaching Descriptive Writing 44.   Student Models: Scaffolding the Writing Process 45.   Summaries: Taking Writing from Notes to Summary 46.   Summary Grids: Writing for Academic Purposes 47.   Text Models: Mimicking the Media 48.   Text to Scripts: Creating Dramatic Dialogue 49.   Tone Study: Revealing the Writer’s Attitude 50.   Writing Workshop: Implementing the Writing Process Conclusion: Lessons Learned Meet the Authors    

About the Author :
Gail E. Tompkins is Professor Emerita at California State Unversity, Fresno, and she continues to direct the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project.  She regularly works with teachers in their kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms and leads staff development programs on reading, language arts, and writing.  In 1998 Dr. Tompkins was inducted into the California Reading Association's Reading Hall of Fame in recognition of her publication and other accomplishments in the field of reading, and recently she was awarded the prestigious Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching at California's State University, Fresno.