Lessons from a Child [Paperback]

Lucy Calkins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 043508206X | ISBN-13: 978-0435082062 | Publication Date: July 11, 1983 | Edition: 1st

A story of one child's growth in writing, Lessons from a Child explains how teachers can work with children, helping them to teach themselves and each other. Matters of classroom management, methods for helping children to use the peer conference, and ways mini-lessons can extend children's understanding of good writing are all covered here. Most important, the sequences of writing development and growth are thoroughly discussed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lucy Calkins is the author of the popular firsthand classroom materials Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3 - 5, as well as several companion resources for literacy coaches and principals. Most recently, Lucy has published a curriculum for the reading workshop, Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades 3-5, and she has written the Common Core Reading & Writing Workshop series for Grades K - 8. In addition, Lucy is the author of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing and One to One. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. She is the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University's Teachers College. For more than twenty-five years, the Project has been both a think tank - developing state of the art teaching methods - and a provider of professional development. In these capacities, the Project has supported hundreds of thousands of educators. As the leader of this world renowned organization, Lucy works closely with policy-makers, superintendents, district leaders and school principals to instigate and sustain school-wide and system-wide educational reforms. But above all, Lucy works closely with teachers and with their classrooms full of wise and wonderful children. Lucy is also the Richard Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, where she leads the Literacy Specialist program. Lucy and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann; 1st edition (July 11, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 043508206X
• ISBN-13: 978-0435082062
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Teaching and Learning to Write., March 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lessons from a Child (Paperback)

The book "Lessons From A Child" by Lucy McCormick Calkins is a book about research done on the process children go through when they write.

The book follows one particular student in Mrs. Howard's classroom, Susie, through her writing. As you read, you can see the changes that take place in Susie's writing. It is simply amazing to see the changes that children go through when they write.

When the author started her research at Susie's elementary school in Atkinson, New Hampshire, Susie was a third grader and did not like to write. Content did not matter to Susie, but the format did. Susie also did not understand the process of revision. Her revisions consisted of just simply rewriting her first draft. As the research continued, Susie started to enjoy writing. By the end of fourth grade, Susie became more confident in her writing and learned that revisions were a good thing and that it was o.k. to have a messy, marked-up first draft.

Through her research, Calkin came to realize that Susie and the other children in the classroom were teaching her and she was learning from them.

This book gives a lot of good ideas for teachers to teach writing, in creative ways, to their students. One thing that I found to be very interesting was the fact that children should be able to pick their own topics they write about. By allowing this, children will become more interested in writing. I believe that students begin to feel like what they have to say and their interests are unimportant if the chance is not there for them to be able to choose what they want to write about.

An important thing to remember for educators is that to encourage writing, you need to have a classroom that encourages writing. Not only that, but you, the educator, needs to model the behavior.

One thing that I have learned from this book is that the writing process is very complex. There are many components to the writing process. It is not as cut and dry as it may seem to some. By reading this book, I have gained new insights on how to approach and teach the writing process to my future classes. Things such as ways to arrange the classroom, lessons to give to the children on the writing process, also working with students in small groups, and peer and teacher conferences. All of these things can help children in their writing.

This book shows you how children think through the process of writing. It shows you things to look for in their writing and ways to support a writer as they begin the journey of their writing process.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Through children, we learn how to teach and succed., April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lessons from a Child (Paperback)

Lucy McCormick Calkins, learns that her previous teachng experience is no help, when doing reaearch on children learning to write. Her true life experience as a researcher also becomes a learning experience that we all could use as teachers. She focuses specifically on a third grade classroom and ends up following one student by the name of Susie. Susie is a perfectionist and as we all have seen some giffted and talented students are perfectionist in their own way. She prides herself through out the beginning of this study on her spelling and neatness, of her writing. Susie also finds no problem on finding a subject to write about. This enjoyable and learning process takes place in Atkinson Elementary School, located in New Hampshire. Mrs. Howard's third grade class was selected for this study lasting approximately two years. Through the third and fourth grade, students learned to feel safe and begin to express themselves through writing. This process is not always successful. Being a future teacher, I have already seen the mistakes in a classroom and I am also proud to have been asked to read this book as part of my class. Through out Susie experience we see the transformation of a student learn to enjoy her reading and writing and the steps needed do accomplish this successfully. With the help of Mrs. Howard, Lucy Calkins learns to understand and write an account that we can learn from. Patience is a big issue here and we need this as teachers in order to help the students in our classes feel safe enough to write the experiences and stories in such a way that they are successful writers. Exploration and the freedom to explore it are needed to be successful in teaching writing and from here, our story proceeds futher. Mrs. Howard also learned during this research that children need to have ownership of thier learning or they will not be successful students. This research teaches not owning the students but the teachers', that learning is a give and take process. At the end of this book, I was kind of sad and happy. It was over and a success for future teachers. This type of research has never been documented in such a way, that we could understand the process and steps of children learning and how to succeed at it. I hope that everyone that reads my review, can receive the enjoyment of such an excellent research and reading material as this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great research into children's needs for effective writing., March 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lessons from a Child (Paperback)

Lessons from a Child, provides phenomonal research into the development and achievement of a student's writing. Lucy McCormick Calkins, the author of this book and former elementary education teacher, conducts a research project at Atkinson Elemtary School in Atkinson, New Hamphire. She begins her study in a third grade classroom with her focus on one particular student. The student's name is Susie. Mrs. Calkins finishes her research after following her through the fourth grade. Mrs. Calkins finds that there can be many barriers blocking students creativity when learning to write. Susie was not born with a special talent to write. However, when she was given room to express herself in her writing by using her own ideas and topics and was also, given the freedom from "correctness" when working on her drafts, she became a "craftsman" in her own right. As Mrs Calkins continued to oberve Susie into the fourth grade, she noticed a huge difference from third to fourth grade. Writing had become second nature for Susie. She was practicing new operations of writing and her writing was fluent. Susie had become comfortable with the revolution of her writing. She didn't worry anymore if it looked good or sounded perfect. Susie, also began to think, not only in the here and now, but in the future and past. This was a result of her third and fourth grade teachers allowing their classsroom to become a student-centered classroom. The children were allowed to explore their own ideas to become more confident in their writing, as Susie did. The students became motivated, because of this and the meaning of writing changed forever in Mrs. Howard's third grade classroom and Mrs. Currier's fourth grade classroom. The book, also gives a few support devices for students to become more confident with their writing skill. The first one was student-peer conferences, The students were allowed to help each other. Susie did this, with her best friend, Diane when Diane didn't know what to write about. Susie problem solved with her and as a result, Diane came up with a topic that she was excited to write about. Also, this can be helpful when the student needs some feedback and peer support. The student can read what he or she wrote to one of his peers and then ask what the he or she thinks about it. In addition, the book suggests to giving students guideline questions to ask each other so that this process can be constructive. Questions like, "What is the most important thing you are trying to say?" and "Why did you choose that topic?" and "Do you think you have two stories or one?" The second one is a conference with self. Children are encouraged to read out loud to themselves to hear for themselves, what they wrote. Thirdly, conferences between the student and teacher are conducted in intervals. The book encourages teachers to not let the students become "welfare writers" by becoming dependent on the teachers ideas. An example of allowing the student to become dependant would be saying something like, "The beginning needs work, doesn't it?" The book encourages teachers not to tell students what to do, but to guide the students and allow them to think for themselves. I really enjoyed this book. It was a great insight into student's special needs to becoming great writers. I know this information will benefit me in my future teaching of writing classes.