Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

Drawing and writing in response to picturebook read-alouds, elementary children construct varying "visual hooks" in their sketches as effective visual devices for extending ideas for writing: the bubble hook, the zoom hook, and the group hook. This article reports on a 12-week qualitative study in which children in second grade develop as writers…

Don Graves died Tuesday, September 28, 2010. In the early 1980s, Don blew open the door to teaching children to write. His qualitative research and subsequent 26 books transformed the teaching of writing in elementary schools. He showed how much could be learned by the simple, powerful strategy of sitting beside children and asking them about…

Donald Graves's early professional books inspired Koshewa to look more deeply into student writing during the 1980s, and to value all phases of the writing process. Graves's perspective on uncovering and celebrating voice elevated Koshewa's writing instruction to a new plane. In this article, he writes about the impact that Donald Graves's work…

Writing is a powerful social tool that offers students opportunities to chisel their identities as they position themselves and others on issues and beliefs (Dyson, 1992). This article presents the story of how Mark, a fifth-grade student who resisted writing in certain classroom contexts, used positional writing practices to shape his identities.…

Third grade students were asked to create symbolic representations of themselves as readers and writers using the engagement of sketch to stretch.

Ethnography can be practiced anywhere by anyone without the slightest knowledge that it is being practiced. The students of three elementary schools are being examined to find the ways in which they have engaged in ethnographic writing.

Describes how a teacher helps children understand that endings do not just magically pop into their heads as they write the final words of their stories. Hopes to provide students with authentic revising sessions and to encourage them to assume the dual role of critical reader and thoughtful writer whenever possible. (SG)

Makes visible how a linguistically diverse group of teachers who were themselves fearful of writing and teaching writing became engaged in writing their own stories. Considers differences and similarities in diverse cultures among the teachers. Notes that as teachers explore the "inscape" of their own cultural and personal stories, memory bridges…

Describes how Taylor's life experiences shaped her writing. Discusses nine of her books, what influenced them, and the context in which they were written. (SG)

Describes how students parallel the process of author Megan McDonald in conducting research and collecting information to provide ideas for the form and content of their writing. Notes that guiding students to record and organize information in a graphic format helps them to transfer those interesting details to new types of writing. (SG)

Explores the creation of "An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly." Selects this book because of the unprecedented decision to give the 1998 Orbis Pictus Award to both the author and the illustrator for a work in which text and illustration melded together. Develops an event model, revealing the creation of this illustrated…

Presents an interview with author Jack Gantos, whose career spans almost 25 years. Notes how he spoke passionately about his craft and about supporting emerging writers. Discusses how avid journaling is one technique that he uses that could benefit anyone. (SG)

Observes four sixth graders composing nonfiction projects for an integrated unit on Canadian studies, using hypermedia. Ponders issues raised when students compose in hypermedia including evaluating nontraditional projects, developing a sense of audience, conventions of the medium, use of visuals to convey information, engaged students, and…

Offers an interview with poet X. J. Kennedy, winner of the prestigious National Council of Teachers of English Award for Poetry for Children for the year 2000. Outlines how he began writing poetry, his work writing poetry for adults, and how he began writing poems for children. Offers an overview of his work. (SR)