No one can say it better than Lucy Calkins-Katie Ray has written a wise, comforting, intimate book. It goes to the heart of where good ideas for teaching of good writing originate: from yourself and your own experience. As Katie shows, the most profound and effective curriculum can result from your own deep understanding of quality writing-what you know about writing through your own and others' writings and through your reading. And the best teaching can result from what you can wrap your heart and mind around and communicate to your students. It is this very personal approach and contagious enthusiasm that Katie brings to bear on creating curriculum for her own writing workshops. Her book shows how you can do it for your own. In Part One, Katie takes a close look at the lines of thinking you can use to find curriculum in your own writing experiences. In Part Two, she shows how to use the same lines of thinking to find curriculum in your everyday reading life. Along with her own inimitable writing style, Katie sprinkles special features throughout her book as helpful tips for thinking about your own writing workshop and curriculum development, including: <ul>
<li>minilessons and "curriculum chunks"</li> <li>"Thinking it Through" boxes with questions and things to try</li> <li>"understandings" and strategies</li> <li>notebook-keeping tips accompanied by Katie's own handwritten journal entries </li> <li>transcripts of interviews with writers</li> <li>references for further reading.</li> </ul>
Follow Katie's example. Write like a teacher of writing. Read like a teacher of writing. Then teach from your own experience. And watch as you and your students flourish like never before.

What You Know by Heart: How to Develop Curriculum for Your Writing Workshop

Reference

Ray, Katie Wood

Words, Language & Grammar

Heinemann

About the Authors is about the littlest authors - those in kindergarten through second grade. Based on a profound understanding of the ways in which young children learn, it shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally - make stuff. So why not write books? Gifted educator and author of the best-selling What You Know by Heart (Heinemann, 2002), Katie Wood Ray has seen young authors do just that. And she wants your students to be able to do the same. Beautifully describing young children in the act of learning, she demonstrates what it takes to nourish writing right from the start: 
<ul>
<li>a supportive environment that enables even the youngest students to write</li> <li>respect and sensitivity to the way children really learn</li> <li>inviting instruction that both encourages and elevates young writers</li> <li>rich language that stimulates writing</li> <li>classroom talk and children's literature that energize young writers</li> <li>developmental considerations that shape the structure of the workshop, making it natural, joyful, and absolutely appropriate.</li> </ul> What's more, Ray explains step by step how to set up and maintain a primary writing workshop, detailing eleven units of study that cover idea generation, text structures, different genres, and illustrations that work with text. She also draws on data, projects, and the language of teaching used in the classroom of first-grade teacher Lisa Cleaveland. Ray allows readers to "listen in" to Lisa as she helps her young students learn from professional writers, work with intention, and think about their own process. Chockfull of examples of little books by young children, About the Authors is proof positive that a primary writing workshop is a smart writing move.

About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers

Cleaveland, Lisa B

Children's Books

Janet Angelillo introduces us to an entirely new way of thinking about writing about reading. She shows us how to teach students to manage all the thinking and questioning that precedes their putting pen to paper. More than that, she offers us smarter ways to have students write about their reading that can last them a lifetime. She demonstrates how students' responses to reading can 
<ul>
<li>start in a notebook, in conversation, or in a read aloud</li> <li>lead to thinking guided by literary criticism</li> <li>reflect deeper text analysis and honest writing processes</li> <li>result in a variety of popular genres--book reviews, author profiles, commentaries, editorials, and the literary essay.</li> </ul> She even includes tools for teaching-day-by-day units of study, teaching points, a sample minilesson, and lots of student examples-plus chapters on yearlong planning and assessment. Ensure that your students will be readers and writers long after they leave you. Get them enthused and empowered to use whatever they read-facts, statistics, the latest book--as fuel for writing in school and in their working lives. Read Angelillo.

Writing About Reading: From Book Talk to Literary Essays, Grades 3-8

Education & Teaching

Angelillo, Janet

Schools & Teaching

No matter what grade you teach, what state your school is in, and what level of diversity is present in your classroom, students have the right to be shown real-world examples of the kinds of writing they're asked to produce. For Katie Wood Ray, this foundational idea is also the beginning of an important way of approaching rigorous writing instruction. In Study Driven Ray shows you that encouraging students to read closely can improve the effectiveness of your writing instruction. Detailing her own method for utilizing the popular mentor-texts approach, Ray helps you immerse children in a close study of published texts that supports their learning, leads them to a better understanding of the traits of good writing, and motivates them to become more accomplished writers. Ray shows you how to set up your writing workshop to facilitate close study. From grounded understandings to informed practice to supportive resources, she demonstrates: 
<ul>
<li>how to find a rich variety of texts that give students a clear vision of the writing you want them to do</li> <li>how to strategically select texts to support whole-class learning as well as individual choice</li> <li>how your teaching language gives structure to curriculum development and student learning </li> <li>how good planning turns curricular standards and objectives into sensible units of study</li> <li>why depth can be a more practical and effective curricular goal than breadth in writing instruction</li> </ul>
Study Driven also gives you the ideas and resources for thirty units of study, ranging from genres to punctuation and appropriate across grade levels. Get students into the habit of studying what they read to help them plan their writing. Give them examples of real-world texts as well as the structure, the space, the time, and the guidance to change and grow as writers. Give yourself Study Driven and find out how.

Study Driven: A Framework for Planning Units of Study in the Writing Workshop

From the very first chapter of this informative and inspiring book, a clear picture emerges of how even three- and four-year-olds' capacities for serious authorship can and should be supported. - Lillian G. Katz Coauthor of Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years By the time they reach preschool or kindergarten, young children are already writers. They don't have much experience, but they're filled with stories to tell and ideas to express - they want to show the world what they know and see. All they need is a nurturing teacher like you to recognize the writer at work within them. All you need to help them is Already Ready. Taking an exciting, new approach to working with our youngest students, Already Ready shows you how, by respecting children as writers, engaged in bookmaking, you can gently nudge them toward a lifetime of joyful writing. Katie Wood Ray and Matt Glover guide you through fundamental concepts of early writing. Providing numerous, helpful examples of early writing - complete with transcriptions - they demonstrate how to: <ul>
<li>
make sense of children's writing and interpret how they represent sounds, ideas, and images</li> <li>
see important developmental signs in writers that you can use to help them grow further</li> <li>
recognize the thinking young children engage in and discover that it's the same thinking more experienced writers use to craft purposeful, thoughtful pieces.</li> </ul> Then Ray and Glover show you how little ones can develop powerful understandings about: <ul>
<li>texts and their characteristics </li> <li>the writing process</li> <li>what it means to be a writer.</li> </ul> You'll learn how to support your writers' quest to make meaning, as they grow their abilities and refine their thinking about writing through teaching strategies such as: <ul>
<li>reading aloud</li> <li>working side by side with writers</li> <li>sharing children's writing.</li> </ul> Writing is just one part of a busy early childhood classroom, but even in little doses, a nurturing approach can work wonders and help children connect the natural writer inside them to a life of expressing themselves on paper. Find that approach, share it with your students, and you'll discover that you don't have to get students ready to write - they're Already Ready.

Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten

Glover, Matt

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

This series is avaible as a paperback book entitled About the Authors, a DVD entitled The Teaching Behind ABOUT THE AUTHORS, and a bundle package.    About the Authors  is about the littlest authors—those in kindergarten through second grade. Based on a profound understanding of the ways in which young children learn, it shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally—make stuff. So why not write books?  Gifted educator and author of the best-selling  What You Know by Heart  (Heinemann, 2002), Katie Wood Ray has seen young authors do just that. And she wants your students to be able to do the same. Beautifully describing young children in the act of learning, she demonstrates what it takes to nourish writing right from the start:    a supportive environment that enables even the youngest students to write   respect and sensitivity to the way children really learn   inviting instruction that both encourages and elevates young writers   rich language that stimulates writing   classroom talk and children's literature that energize young writers   developmental considerations that shape the structure of the workshop, making it natural, joyful, and absolutely appropriate.    What's more, Ray explains step by step how to set up and maintain a primary writing workshop, detailing eleven units of study that cover idea generation, text structures, different genres, and illustrations that work with text. She also draws on data, projects, and the language of teaching used in the classroom of first-grade teacher Lisa Cleaveland. Ray allows readers to "listen in" to Lisa as she helps her young students learn from professional writers, work with intention, and think about their own process.  Chockfull of examples of little books by young children,  About the Authors  is proof positive that a primary writing workshop is a smart writing move.

About the Authors Book + DVD: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers

Cleaveland, Lisa

As teachers, we do indeed live narrative lives, and if you read Engaging Young Writers, Preschool to Grade 1, Matt Glover will help you live out new kinds of stories with the children you teach. I know he's helped me do just that. I'm a better teacher because of what I've learned from him. Katie Wood Ray Author of About the Authors We are so fortunate to have this book. Matt shares his deep understanding of young writers, presents a thoughtful and warm approach to teaching writing, and shows us how to nudge children in ways that are considerate of their interests and intentions as well as their intellectual development. -Kathy Collins Author of Growing Readers Many children come to school wanting to write. But some are unsure about getting started or don't realize they have something to say. Motivating students to put markers to paper is the key that unlocks a lifetime of writing. Engaging Young Writers presents a range of entry points that help every student find a way into writing. In Engaging Young Writers, Matt Glover (coauthor of Already Ready) presents ways to encourage students to pick up the pen and share their remarkable thinking. With multiple entry points for writers, he helps you match your teaching to children's individual interests and patterns of learning. Glover shows how you can: <ul>
<li>nudge writers into action through meaning, choice, and purpose </li> <li>invite preschool children to write through conversation and invite primary students through units of study </li> <li>spark imaginative writing through read-aloud and dramatic play </li> <li>inspire kids to write stories from personal experiences </li> <li>give students the chance to share their passions and interests through nonfiction writing. </li> </ul>
Engaging Young Writers features teaching tested in real classrooms and the student samples to back it up. Glover takes special care to address how his ideas can be applied to the unique developmental needs of writers in preschool, kindergarten, and grade one. Inside every child is a writer. Inside you is the desire to give children a great start. Inside Engaging Young Writers is the teaching to help you create that wonderful moment when your students decide to become the writer within.

Engaging Young Writers, Preschool-Grade 1

Make abstract qualities like tone, detail, and organization easily visible for young writers with Katie Wood Ray's In Pictures and in Words. "If teachers show children how an illustrator's decisions about pictures are a lot like a writer's decisions about words, they form a bridge of understanding that nurtures children as writers." Katie Wood Ray Katie (beloved author of About the Authors and Already Ready) begins with a strong, classroom-based research foundation for this powerful, intuitive idea. She then suggests 50 ways you might use illustrations to help students internalize key aspects of craft through their love of picture books. In Pictures and in Words is filled with sample student work that documents how children's thinking deepens as they explore illustrations. Katie even includes full-color pages of published illustrations with examples of sticky-notes that show the kinds of links students can make between pictures and words. Give children an engaging way to make the qualities of good writing part of everything they write, for life. Find out how Katie Ray can help you do it when you read In Pictures and In Words.

In Pictures and In Words: Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration Study

About the Authors (Print eBook Bundle): Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers

Already Ready (Print eBook Bundle): Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ray, Katie Wood. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ray, Katie Wood