How Writers Grow: A Guide for Middle School Teachers

You may be a teacher preparing for your first classroom, wondering what teaching writing will be like. Or you may have run dozens of workshops and felt both elation and frustration at student progress. Either way, Cynthia Carbone Ward has three words for you: You’re not alone.

 

In How Writers Grow Ward offers you what so many teachers wish they’d started their career with, a slim, practical, and warmly reassuring handbook on the craft of writing instruction. With emotional, intellectual, and instructional guidance as well as strategies and activities, How Writers Grow gives you the quintessence of planning for instruction, teaching lessons about different types of writing, and assessing what your students have learned. Through it all, Ward shows you examples of student writing along with tips on overcoming resistance, encouraging risk taking, and empowering every writer’s improvement. In addition, descriptions of teaching moments offer a realistic sense of what to expect from yourself, including when and how to take an active classroom role, and when to step back and trust in the process.