Fifth grade teacher Molly Toussant realized with chagrin that she habitually mouthed her precepts about teaching writing in the same rote way she had recited the Apostles' Creed in Sunday school, and that her students had no idea why they had to write "like every day." So she wrote this explication in which she shows, with many examples, how her teaching practices result from her five guiding beliefs about writing. These guiding beliefs are: (1) writers need time for practice; (2) writers need models; (3) writers need meaningful, specific feedback; (4) writers need to write for specific audiences; and (5) writers need to write for real reasons.