Learning How to Write from Your Favorite Author

Mary Smith

Literacy Coach

Milby High School, Houston ISD

My Journey as a Teacher

• Lucy Calkins Writing Institute

• Writers-in-the-Schools Writing Project

• Rice University Writing Project

• Univ. of New Hampshire Writing Project

• UHD Reading Tutor/Adjunct

• Writing Staff Developer

• Literacy Coach

Milby High School

• Located in southeast Houston

• Involved in High School Reform Initiative

• About 2200 students—94% Hispanic

• The 2004 State Basketball Champions

of Texas—39 wins, 0 losses

• Block Scheduling—90 minute classes every other day

Literacy Coach

• Help implement literacy strategies across the content areas

• Provide on-going staff development

• Observe teachers and tell them what they are doing well

• Encourage teachers to work together and to share what they know

Today’s Objective

To learn the “craft” of writing from other writers…

If they can do it, we can too!

Lucy Calkins

• Lucy Calkins studied what real writers do

• Decided that children can be taught to keep a writer’s notebook

The Art of Teaching Writing,

by Lucy McCormick Calkins

A writer’s notebook is simply a “seedbed”

for more writing.

The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy McCormick Calkins

Night in the Country, by Cynthia Rylant

• What does the story make you remember?

• What does the story make you think about?

• Jot down your ideas for writing.

Write

• About a moment in your life that you are remembering

or

• What the story made you think about…

Share with the person next to you.

Teaching students to write about what matters to them is extremely important,

but it isn’t enough….

It’s a good start, but it isn’t enough….

Writers need to be immersed in good literature

and they need to be taught how to use the

texts they read as mentors for the texts they

will write.

We have to show our students a model

of the kind of writing that we want them

to learn how to do.

According to Katie Wood Ray,

“Writing well involves learning to attend to

the craft of writing, learning to do the

sophisticated work of separating what it’s

about from how it is written” (10).

Wondrous Words

“When students are taught to see how writing is done, this way of seeing opens up to them huge warehouses of possibilities for how to make their writing good writing” (11).

Wondrous Words

by Katie Wood Ray

Listen as I read Night in the Country again…

This time, follow along with the typed text.

Read like a writer and notice the “craft” of

the writing.

Night in the Country

Notice It Name It Try It

Now write again…

This time, use one of the Cynthia Rylant’s

crafting techniques to revise your writing, to

make it “a little bit better.”

Share

When students are learning to write, they

need:

• Instruction in writing

• Time to write on a daily basis

• Mentors to hold their hands and to show them the way

I can think of no better person to hold

my students’ hands and to nudge them

into being better writers than the authors

who have written the way

I would like for my students to write.

Who are your favorite authors?

Who are the authors that can mentor your

students to become better writers?

Modifications

• For Gifted and Talented

• For Learning Challenged

• For English as a Second Language

Bibliography

Calkins, L. (1994). The Art of Teaching Writing. Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH.

Ray, K. W. (1999). Wondrous Words. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL.