Writing Behind Every Door: Teaching Common Core Writing in the Content Areas

For students to become college-ready writers, they must be exposed to writing throughout the school day, not just in English class. This practical book shows teachers in all subject areas how to meet the Common Core State Standards and make writing come alive in the classroom. Award-winning educator Heather Wolpert-Gawron provides effective and exciting ideas for teaching argument writing, informational writing, project-based writing, and writing with technology. Each chapter is filled with strategies, prompts, and rubrics you can use immediately. Special Features: A variety of writing strategies that work in any subject area Tips for developing meaningful prompts Diagrams and templates that you can use with your students Rubrics for assessing writing, as well as ideas for having students create their own rubrics Samples of student work in different formats Ideas for teaching students to break the Google homepage habit and conduct effective research Cross-curricular writing assignments for science, history, ELA, electives, and PE Suggestions for teaching summary writing, an essential academic skill Ideas for staff professional development on Common Core writing

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: The Common Core Standards as a Meaningful Guide, Not an Instruction Manual Chapter 2: Argument: The Universal Writing Genre Chapter 3: Informational: It’s All Around Us Chapter 4: Narrative: There’s a Place For it in All Disciplines Chapter 5: Summary: Get to the Point! The Underrated Writing Genre Chapter 6: The Multi-Genre Genre Chapter 7: Techniques to Teach Writing That Works Chapter 8: Writing with Technology for the Common Core Chapter 9: 21st Century PD in Writing for Every Teacher

About the Author :
Heather Wolpert-Gawron is an award-winning middle school teacher and a popular blogger through Tweenteacher.com and Edutopia.org. Her first book, ’Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers¸ was published by Eye On Education in 2011.

Review :
"Heather Wolpert-Gawron offers teachers across the curriculum techniques for making writing a natural product of student learning. Let her show you how to move from assigning and assessing writing to using writing as a tool to deepen students' comprehension. Writing Behind Every Door presents an argument impossible to argue against." --Carol Jago, long-time English teacher in Santa Monica, California and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English "Wow, I feel like a better writer and thinker, let alone teacher, when reading Writing Behind Every Door. Appropriate for teaching 4th grade through high school (and beyond), this will be the book I give to all subject teachers looking for compelling blueprints, practical strategies, and extensive resources for making writing the powerful teaching tool it is." --Rick Wormeli, education consultant, thought-leader, and bestselling author of books on instruction and assessment "Heather not only offers fellow English language arts teachers a rich array of strategies and lessons for preparing their students to become college and career ready, but she reaches out to content area teachers with discipline-specific activities so that writing will truly be going on behind every classroom door. She has definitely provided teachers with innovative ways to meet and exceed the Common Core!" --Carol Booth Olson, Associate Professor at the University of California at Irvine and Director of the UC Irvine Writing Project "I made notes all the way through. The book was relevant to my work as an ELA teacher and as an instructional coach in all subject areas. Even the title provides multiple delightful meanings–not only is writing a subject that all teachers should use “behind their own classroom doors,” but it is also something that can be scary like a movie monster hiding behind a creaky door. If you read this book you may actually learn to enjoy the creaky opening of that potentially scary door that is writing instruction, and you will be able to peer happily around the solid barrier. You and your students will benefit from being able to travel with ease through various content area doorways." --Kathleen Pham, Middleweb