The Art of Teaching Writing,   ISBN:9780435088170

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Your site did not say the copyright date and what I got was the old edition. I would have paid extra for the new edition if I had known.

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Lucy Calkins writes in an easy to understand manner that provides a great foundation for teachers who teach writing. She debunks some of the standard assignments that teachers often use in hopes of improving student writing. This is a required text for a graduate course I am taking called "Improving Language Arts Instruction". Read this before you buy another book about teaching writing!

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I was very pleased with this purchase and would recommend many people purchasing. It came quick and was in excellent condition.

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This book was exactly what I wanted. It was in excellent condition and was very reasonable in price and shipping.

I love Amazon!
Brenda

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Lucy McCormick Calkins', The Art of Teaching Writing is an essential read to teachers of writing in any grade, but especially for the primary and middle levels. This book is also helpful for new teachers as well as veterans. Teaching writing to the primary and middle school grades can be a challenge, but the instruction she gives and the creativity of her ideas create an exciting guide for any teacher. As someone who plans to teach at the middle school level, I found many of Calkins' suggestions to be very useful.

Throughout the book, Calkins shows the need for meaning in writing and living our lives as writers, and demonstrating this to our students. Her ideas for the Writer's Notebook will allow the students a creative way of noticing the world around them as only a writer can. By giving the students an outlet to get out everything they want to say, they will begin to live the lives of writers.

Calkins stresses that students need to feel like authors to truly take ownership and be excited about their writing; she emphasizes the need for specific writing environments made to inspire and evoke emotion in the writer. These environments consist of cardboard desk separators decorated to each writer's own unique taste. Personal items and quotations may be used to cure any student of the dreaded writer's block.

Allowing the students to become the teachers is just another inventive way Calkins explains in order to allow them to flourish and grow as writers. She puts great importance on seeing and respecting every idea a students have. She realizes that teachers are students as well, and any idea, whether it comes from the teacher or the pupil, can be immensely inspiring.

These are just a few of her techniques, though she offers many more throughout the book. Genre studies, poetry, creative nonfiction, Mini-Lessons and conferences are just a few more ideas she touches upon in great depth.

By instructing teachers on how we can improve the writing environment for our young, impressionable students and explaining various methods in which to do so, Calkins' book is truly ground-breaking for anyone who wants to truly inspire their students to love writing. Any new or seasoned teacher of writing needs to read this book and even veteran teachers can take something away from the fresh look she gives us on the topic. It will open your eyes to all the possibilities there are in teaching writing!