Teacher Books: Must-Haves
Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market: 850 Places to Sell Your Work
- A yearly updated version available at any bookstore. Students get excited when they see authentic outlets for their work for which they might even earn money!
Thinking Out Loud on Paper: The Student Daybook as a Tool to Foster Learning
- Lilian Brannon, Sally Griffin, Karen Haag, Tony Iannone, Cynthia Urbanski and Shana Woodward, Heinemann, 2008. Five of my colleagues and I detail personal journeys introducing and sustaining daybooks in our classrooms. We are indebted to Donald Murray who coined the term "daybook," a notebook teachers and students write in all day. Maintaining a daybook is a responsibility that rests on the shoulders of students: a place to write, think, reflect, set goals and assess their work in any subject matter and at any grade level K-college. Students use daybooks effectively if shown how as we explain in our book.
Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classroom
- Katie Wood Ray, NCTE, 2000. Katie has written my favorite. Her style is easy to read. She challenges our conventional wisdom and pushes us to teach more. She asks us to be writers so that we can understand what we are teaching and know what to teach. She writes in detail about using books as story structures to teach our students. In the community Katie envisions, our students would be our writing partners. Together, we all would learn to write better and enjoy the writing!
Notebook Know How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook
- Aimee Buckner, fourth-grade teacher. Buckner's book is similar to our book, Thinking Out Loud on Paper, in that the author suggests strategies for launching writer's notebooks. Her focus is on intermediate children and writer's workshop whereas our book is for 4-12, writer's workshop, and all content areas including technology. I found Notebook Know How to be a very useful resource to share with new-to-the-concept teachers. Stenhouse first published the book in 2005. It's short and filled with writing-lesson ideas that I find useful. 136 pages.
Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers
- M. Horn and M.E. Giacobbe, Stenhouse Publishers 2007. I LOVE this book! Of course, the ideas are for younger readers but I use many of the ideas with my upper elementary students. If you're just getting started, you will enjoy the many lesson plans that explain easily your next steps until you're ready to walk on your own. The chapters on drawing and teaching children to draw are worth the purchase price.
Breathing In, Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer's Notebook
- Ralph Fletcher, Heinemann, 1996. If you want to know more about keeping your own writer's notebook and helping others learn to keep one, read this book. Fletcher talks you through all your fears and encourages you to keep a place where you can "just write badly." Following his advice, you will begin to write and your enthusiasm will be catchy to your kids.
The Classics
In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading and Learning
- Nancie Atwell, Heinemann, 1998. I'm sure this book does not need much introduction. My copy is sticky-tabbed all over. Atwell starts us on the road to creating our own writing life and writing workshop with plenty of ideas, lists, samples, and encouragement. This book should be a reference in every school.
After the End: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision
- Barry Lane, Heinemann, 1993. Whenever I'm short on ideas for helping my kids revise I turn to this book. We all shudder when we hear a child say, "I'm done," and we look down to see a few sentences. Lane gives me ideas to help children see how to stretch their stories, get effective story ideas, and reorganize their stories. His ideas can be used in the drafting stages although he stresses revision.
And With a Light Touch: Learning About Reading, Writing and Teaching With First Graders
- Carol Avery, Heinemann, 1993. Although the title says first graders, I use this book all the time for ideas on how to structure writing workshop, conferences, minilessons, publishing ideas and more. It's definitely not light reading at 488 pages but it is complete. Avery includes samples of children's writing, lists, and bibliographies to make the teacher's writing life as easy as possible. The thing I like about Avery is she's not afraid to say that things don't always go right. It's always a favorite and stays lent to friends constantly.
Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing and Research in Grades 3-8
- Stephanie Harvey, Stenhouse Publishers. 1998. I love this book. Harvey gives us all kinds of ideas for making writing nonfiction real and interesting. We don't talk much about writing nonfiction but we should. She applies all the writing strategies we'd love our kids to use in any writing to their favorite topics likes whales and video games.
How Writers Write
- Pamela Lloyd, Nelson Publishers, 1987. This book comes in handy all the time. Lloyd interviewed children's author and compiled the interviews in this book. They talk about how they think of topics, how they plan their writing, how they draft, revise and who they depend on as editors. It's the next best thing to having the authors right in class with you. We can learn about writing from authors. Lloyd thought to ask them some important questions and write down their answers. You can have that information on your desk, too.
Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8
- Ralph Fletcher, Stenhouse, 1998. Fletcher writes lesson plans for teachers, which focus children on the craft of writing. He gives us plans for writing leads, creating characters, revising by cutting and pasting, slowing down the "hot spots," and gets us started on just about every minilesson that immediately comes to mind. He lays out the book in a K-2, 3-5, 6-8 format so there are lessons for all grade levels.
The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever: Everything You Need to Teach the Essential Elements - and the Magic - of Good Writing
- Barbara Mariconda, Scholastic, 1999. Teachers love this book. Mariconda takes the critical writing ideas we want to teach our children and writes our lesson plans for us. Simple, well-chosen, effective. My favorite chapters are on teaching children to use effective dialogue and how to elaborate with details.
Bring Life Into Learning: Create a Lasting Literacy
- Donald Graves, Heinemann, 1999. Ever the master, Graves once again captures the essence of the teacher's life and the pressures we experience in the 21st century. The book helps us see ways of integrating writing in all areas of the curriculum. Reading chapter 1 alone is worth the price of the book. When done, I thought, "Now here is at least one person who understands."
The Reading/Writing Teacher's Companion: Experiment with Fiction
- Donald Graves, Heinemann, 1989. Graves helps me help my students write imaginatively - how to invent plots and characters, first lines and endings. He encourages us not to wait till after Christmas to teach fiction but to grab onto fiction when it first appears in the classroom. Children are not afraid of fiction. We shouldn't be, either.
Spelling
Teaching Spelling: A Practical Resource
- Faye Bolton & Diane Snowball, Heinemann, 1993. Finally, a spelling program that works because it's based on inquiry. Children discover for themselves what makes sense in the English language and what they need to study. Teachers and students set the stage together to study spelling at the right time - not when we're drafting! With Bolton and Snowball's books, we no longer have to spend hours thinking about what spelling lessons to teach. Ideas are structured for us so that children will learn to spell correctly in their writing.
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NEXT: Karen's favorite picture and narrative books