Coming to Know: Writing to Learn in the Intermediate Grades (Workshop Series) [Paperback]

Nancie Atwell (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 043508500X | ISBN-13: 978-0435085001 | Publication Date: November 15, 1989

Coming to Know is a book for teachers who are ready to put writing to work across the curriculum. It is written by teachers of grades 3 through 6 who, dissatisfied with encyclopedia-based approaches to content-area writing, asked their students to write as scientists, historians, mathematicians, and literary critics do - to use writing-as-process to discover meaning.

One of the subjects of this volume is report writing and ways to help children produce content-area writing that is as personal and meaningful as their stories of their own experiences. Students learn how to take notes in their own words, conduct interviews, record observations, design their first simple research project, select appropriate genres for their research, and apply the techniques of writing workshop in science, social studies, and reading classes.

In addition, Coming to Know explores the uses of academic journals, or learning logs. Children speculate, brainstorm, role play, correspond, predict, and ask questions about math, reading, science, and social studies - and demonstrate the power of informal writing to generate thinking. Coming to Know is also about the connections between reading and writing, the effects of using writing to learn on curriculum and planning, and the role of children's literature in teaching science, social studies and math.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nancie Atwell is one of the most highly respected educators in the U.S. Her classic In the Middle has inspired generations of teachers, and her new DVDs Writing in the Middle and Reading in the Middle give us a seat in her writing and reading workshops so that we can see firsthand how she helps students become independent, sophisticated readers and writers. She is also the author of classroom materials through Firsthand. Lessons that Change Writers is a year's worth of instruction straight from Nancie's file cabinets, while Naming the World helps teachers jumpstart their literacy teaching each day the way Nancie does - with poetry, the mother genre. Nancie teaches seventh- and eighth-grade writing, reading, and history at the Center for Teaching and Learning, a K - 8 demonstration school she founded in Edgecomb, Maine, in 1990. Nancie was the first classroom teacher to receive the NCTE David H. Russell Award and the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for distinguished research in the teaching of English. Nancie was recently named 2010 Teacher of the Year by River of Words; a California-based non-profit educational organization and also received an honorary degree from the University of New Hampshire during its 2011 commencement ceremony. Read Nancie's Education Week article in which she makes the case for literature in the core standards. To see and hear Nancie's response to the NY Times article on the place of student choice in reading, click here. Read the Article » Review Related Titles » Join the Discussion »

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (November 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 043508500X
• ISBN-13: 978-0435085001
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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