Building a Writing Community: A Practical Guide [Paperback]

Marcia S. Freeman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0929895134 | ISBN-13: 978-0929895130 | Publication Date: September 1, 1995

New and experienced teachers appreciate this easy-to-use, comprehensive approach to teaching young writers style, genre characteristics, composition skills, conventions, and the writing process itself. The classroom-tested techniques satisfy young writers' need for structure and content, while offering them freedom to develop their style, repetoire, and voice. The book includes more than 350 classrooms-tested models, lessons, procedures, and activities and 37 reproducibles. If you want to create a community of writers who love to write and speak the language of writers, this book is the key.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...highly informative and readable... if you're looking for how - to guidance or some fresh ideas, pick up Marcia Freeman's excellent resource." --Instructor Magazine

About the Author

Marcia Sheehan Freeman, an internationally recognized writing education consultant and author, assists districts across the nation in implementing K-8 writing instruction programs. She is also a writing and science consultant for educational publishers. The Cornell University graduate began her career as a high school science teacher before moving up to the elementary classroom.

She is the author of Building a Writing Community; Teaching the Youngest Writers; Listen to This: Developing an Ear for Expository; Models for Teaching Writing-Craft Target Skills, and most recently, Crafting Comparison Papers. These writing-education books are highly valued classroom-teacher resources, and serve as college texts in many teacher preparation programs. Her other publications include three works of children s fiction and 50 photo-illustrated science and geography Big Books and non-fiction guided reading books for Newbridge Educational Publishers, Rand McNally, Rourke Classroom Resources, and Capstone Press.

She is co-creator of the Readers for Writers series for Rourke Classroom Resources. This guided, K-2 reading and writing program with photo-illustrated, leveled texts is based on the National Science Standards.

In 2001, Maupin House released CraftPlus®, the culmination of Marcia s comprehensive writing-craft instructional approach. The nation s first and only K-8 writing curriculum and staff development resource focuses on teaching students the explicit Target SkillsTM and techniques that all writers use. This innovative, video-based resource includes a spiraling, craft-based curriculum, instructional pacing charts, and professional books. It focuses on expository, informational genres to directly support core content-area reading programs. CraftPlus® includes classroom management techniques for writing workshop instruction and study guides for study-group learning.

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Maupin House Publishing (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929895134
• ISBN-13: 978-0929895130
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth it!, July 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Building a Writing Community: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

This book is a fabulous resource for constructing a school-wide writing community. We purchased it as a resource for all of our teachers and immediately began discussing it in small groups and staff developments. The teachers see it as a tool to help them keep student writers at the edge of their learning. We have seen writing scores on state-wide assessments increase in our school using the target skills and craft models discussed in this book.

This book is easy to read and will be a great resource for years to come!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book for teaching writing to kids ever!, June 7, 2003

By 

Nell Waldrop (Metairie, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building a Writing Community: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

Marcia's book is the best! It is completely practical and has step-by-step information about how to teach every genre of writing in totally KID-FRIENDLY terms! If your students aren't getting better by just going through the writing process, then this is the book for you! Her approach is unlike anything else on the market. It can make teaching writing, if not a breeze, then at least something over which you can gain control. I can't say enough about how useful this book is. If you can only buy one book to help you teach writing, then this is it!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable source of information that is easy to implement., May 30, 2001

By 

Dana H. Pasterjak "Dana" (Palm Coast, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building a Writing Community: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

Marcia Freeman recntly addressed the teachers in our county on this book. Everyone present was moved with her easy and practical advice for teaching writing. It was a truly innovative and exciting workshop. This book is full of useful and easy-to-implement teaching methods that actually make teaching writing easier with the results we want: better writing from our students.