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Putting Everyday Life on the Page

Inspiring Students to Write, Grades 2-7

By: Marc Levitt

Develop your students' enthusiasm and ability to write about what is meaningful to them!

In a conversational and humorous style, Marc Levitt demonstrates how to teach writing by acknowledging and utilizing what your students already know. This engaging book offers a wealth of easily implemented ideas and activities to encourage a love of writing and help students draw effectively from their own diverse and rich experiences. Illustrating how teachers can use a multisensory approach and exercise students' observational intelligence, the author also emphasizes specific facets of the writer's craft:

Beginnings
Sequential thinking
Observation and description
Characters
Settings and endings

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Product Details

Grade Level: 2-7
ISBN: 9781412965323
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2008
Page Count: 128
Publication date: November 10, 2008

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Description

"A refreshing break from the rule-obsessed manuals that litter the educational marketplace. What better way to teach students to write than through their own experiences, their own senses, their own feelings of mystery, wonder, and excitement!"
—Thomas Armstrong, Author
The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing

"With pre-writing and observing activities, targeted lessons, and simple strategies that create a desire to write, Levitt shows us that teaching students to write better is not only possible but fulfilling and fun."
—R. James Stahl, Founder
Merlyn's Pen Magazine and the New Library of Young Adult Writing

Develop your students' enthusiasm and ability to write about what is meaningful to them!

Elementary and middle school students often struggle with how to choose and develop topics in their writing. In a conversational and humorous style, Marc Levitt demonstrates how to help students write effectively by drawing from their own diverse and rich experiences.

This engaging book offers a wealth of easily implemented ideas and activities to encourage a culture of writing in your classroom and teach writing by acknowledging and utilizing what your students already know. Illustrating how teachers can use a multisensory approach and exercise students' observational intelligence, the author emphasizes specific facets of the writer's craft:

Beginnings
Sequential thinking
Observation and description
Characters
Settings and endings

This book offers novice and experienced teachers a myriad of ideas to help them teach writing skills that translate to the general academic setting and foster a love of writing.

Key features

an easy, engaging read that will not be intimidating for novice teachers
rather than exercises and worksheets, the author provides a myriad of inspiring ideas, as well as information, about how to engage children in writing
shows teachers how to take advantage of their students' prior knowledge and encourage good writing "from the bottom up"

Author(s)

Marc Levitt

Marc Levitt is a writer/storyteller/consultant who tours throughout the United States and to over thirty-five countries. Levitt has created one-person historical shows, musically enhanced historical and ecological narratives, and award-winning audios, and has produced plays and a documentary film on Narragansett stonemasons.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

1. Beginnings

2. Sequential Thinking

3. Observations, Description, and Colorful Language

4. Finding and Using Characters

5. Finding and Using Place

6. Motivating Your Students

7. Grammatical Conventions: Sentences, Paragraphs, Commas, and Periods

8. Encouraging a Culture of Writing in Your Classroom: Creating a Writer's Studio and Salon

9. Endings

Index

Reviews

"This book has some of the strongest writing prompts and examples I have read in a long time!"

Brenda Lynch, Spanish Teacher
Madison High School, SD

"This book is packed with lessons ready for use."

Jim D’Acosta, Teacher
Fairfield Warde High School, Fairfield, CT

"This book is written from years of passionate experience in classrooms with students. It offers a multitude of great ideas for lessons."

Diana W. McDougal, Art Teacher
East High School, Cheyenne, WY

"Young writers often don’t grasp what they are being asked to do by their teachers. The author offers many strategies to make abstract writing concepts more concrete."

Stacy Gardner Dibble, Fifth-Grade Teacher and Reading Coordinator
Prairie Elementary School, Worthington, MN

"Inventive and original, Marc Levitt's ideas actually put the fun back in writing—for teachers and for students."

Susan Ohanian, Senior Fellow
Vermont Society for the Study of Education

"A refreshing break from the rule-obsessed 'how to teach students to write' manuals that litter the educational marketplace. What better way to teach students to write than through their own experiences, their own senses, their own feelings of mystery, wonder, excitement, and dread! Let teachers everywhere use this book to make new Kafkas, Woolfs, and Ellisons, and to awaken in every student a love for making words that just sing off the page!"

Thomas Armstrong, Author of The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing

"With pre-writing and observing activities, targeted lessons, and simple strategies that create a desire to write, Levitt shows us that teaching students to write better is not only possible but fulfilling and fun."

R. James Stahl, Founder
Merlyn's Pen Magazine and the New Library of Young Adult Writing

"Lucky for all young writers, Levitt has turned his storytelling talents to talking to teachers in this practical and user-friendly book. Teachers across the curriculum will find Levitt's suggestions innovative and helpful as he describes how to transition students through the writing process. Always student-centered, Levitt invites us to keep children and their interests at the heart of writing."

Pat Cordeiro, Professor of Elementary Education
Rhode Island College

Other Titles in: Middle School Teaching Methods | Elementary Teaching Methods | Literacy, K-12

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This book is not available as a review copy.