The authors explored the impact of a novel, interactive performing arts-based program on students' writing skills. The program featured the Story Pirates, a group that teaches children how to write stories and then turns their stories into a musical sketch comedy show. Written stories from the third-grade students in an elementary school were…

This article focuses on disciplinary literacy and how a struggling writer in a Norwegian classroom positions herself as a disciplinary writer when given model texts. The study explores how model texts can scaffold students' disciplinary writing and give them the opportunity to position themselves as disciplinary writers in lab reports and factual…

Supporting upper elementary students' higher level (i.e., analytic) thinking about texts in writing is a challenge for many teachers, in large part because what it means to analyze text is not well defined and because this skill is a relatively new expectation in elementary grades. In this article, the authors clarify the goal of three common…

Increasingly, school leaders recognize the need for writing instruction to become a schoolwide priority. The writers' workshop approach that was popularized 30 years ago is still relevant; it is still important to give students protected time to write, opportunities to address topics and audiences that matter, and timely feedback. Recent research…

This article explores how the research-based practice of using mentor texts can support students' writing within their subject areas. Specifically, this article examines the writing demands of the Common Core Writing Standards and how using mentor texts helps teachers meet these writing standards. We share guiding principles for using mentor…

Notes that literature full of rich, specific vocabulary is the best source for teaching good writing. Briefly lists mini lessons that focus on encouraging the use of interesting words. (SR)

Provides a paragraph frame as an organizational guide for developing reports from nonfiction children's magazines. (MG)

Voices concerns with isolated exercises in grammar. Offers an alternative, in which teachers collect sentences (mostly from literature) and use them to point out or teach skills for writers. Offers numerous examples. (SR)

Describes how a fourth-grade teacher made poetry part of the daily ritual of her class. Describes how students began to read poems, write poems, and love poems enough to work persistently at reading and writing them. Describes a poetry festival that the class prepared. Describes the many effects, both cognitive and affective, of daily poetry. (SR)

Argues that children's literature is a great tool for teaching writing in the elementary grades. Offers a list of fine children's literature the authors use to teach specific writing and "writerly" skills. (SR)

A carefully coordinated literacy assessment and instruction framework implemented school-wide can support school teams in making sense of various types of data for instructional planning. Instruction that is data based and goal driven sets the stage for continuous reading and writing improvement. (Contains 2 figures.)

Describes a novel type of interactive writing called "interest journals" that motivates students and promotes persuasive writing. Discusses getting started, and the benefits of interest journals. (SR)

Highlights the teacher's critical role in spelling instruction and provides examples of how to support spelling development in classrooms. Argues that educators need to look closely at children's emerging capacities as writers, focusing especially on the issue of invented spelling, and its use and misuse in classroom practices. (SG)

Describes a six-month project in a second grade classroom in which students wrote descriptive sentences to accompany the pictures in wordless picture books. Describes how this was done first as a whole class, then with partners, and finally individually. Notes that each story created in this fashion was read to someone. (SR)

Describes a successful writing activity to help students become confident reporters for a classroom newspaper. Notes that this assignment incorporates several writing styles and literary devices. (MG)