Summer Growth for 2008:
WritingFix now features a Bibliography Page!
Librarians and teachers, check out our on-line WritingFix Bibliography. Does your school library carry all the "mentor texts" cited by WritingFix's free-to-use lessons and classroom writing prompts? If you're not sure, check out our new Bibliography Page, which lists all of our titles and authors on one page.
WritingFix now features an Author Studies Homepage!
Teachers, check out our newest WritingFix page that celebrates Author Studies. During your summer hiatus, develop a new unit using the featured authors on the left-hand side of the page....or brush up on new teaching techniques by finding a new book by one of WritingFix's five favorite authors who write about the teaching of writing.
Looking for an Excellent New "Mentor Text" for your Classroom?
Please join us for a new "community of teachers" project sponsored by WritingFix for the 2008-09 school year.
For this upcoming school year, WritingFix is launching a new anyone-from-anywhere-can-participate project that will be based on Roni Schotter's excellent picture book Nothing Ever Happens On 90th Street. We are still surprised at how many upper elementary and middle school teachers we meet who still don't have a classroom copy of this pretty-much-perfect classroom "mentor text." When we share it aloud with teachers at workshops, posing the question, "So how would you use this text as a classroom tool to inspire better writing?", we always receive incredible and original answers. This book lends itself to creative teaching ideas. This project will begin publishing unique ideas from real teachers around the globe so that we all can benefit from them. Click here to see our under-development page here at WritingFix that celebrates this book as a mentor text.
In this picture book, a student named Eva has been assigned to do some writing. She doesn't believe anything that has happened to her or around her is interesting enough to write down in her notebook. Sound familiar, by any chance? Four of her neighbors approach, and each give her a solid piece of good writing advice that she slowly starts to use. Suddenly the street she lives on becomes an interesting place to write about, and each piece of advice is acted upon multiple times as her writing unfolds. When Eva is done, and is told how good her story turned out, she remarks that it will be even better after she does a little revising. This is a book that students will benefit from listening to over and over again.
To participate in this project, teachers will first need to have a classroom copy of this picture book. You can shop for the best price at Amazon by clicking here or by hovering your mouse over the picture of the book cover over there on the left. Read the book and ask yourself, "How can I use this book's unique ideas or its crafted writing when teaching my students to write better?" Devise a simple plan for your classroom, then share the book during the school year. If you have success using the book (which you will!) and if you share how you used it with WritingFix, you might earn a free copy of one of the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Publications for your classroom!
Even if you don't want to share a blurb from your classroom, you will still be able to access and use ideas from teachers around the globe who are using this book as a mentor text by clicking here. But...you need to have a copy of the book to be able to understand the blurbs and resources. So before the upcoming school year starts breathing down your neck even harder, make sure you get a copy ordered and sent to you. Buy it new, and we believe you'll conclude that it is the best $6.99 you invested in your classroom this year.
And...if you're shopping for additional mentor texts to use this upcoming year, be sure to check out WritingFix's new Bibliography Page, which cites all the books we use as mentor texts at WritingFix.
WritingFix's Philosophy: Interactive Choices Inspire Writers
from Corbett Harrison, WritingFix's webmaster
We all appreciate choices in life. In the classrooms where I learned to write, often I had little or no choice when writing was assigned to me. "Write a report about this topic," "Make sure your essay addresses this theme," and "Follow this format when writing your paragraphs" were mandates I remember from school that stifled me as a writer.
When I became a teacher, I allowed my students to make choices when they selected topics and approaches for papers and assignments. I taught them writing skills, and they applied those skills to the topics that interested them. My classroom of writers thrived in my choice-based, workshop approach to the teaching of writing.
When creating this website for writers, students, and their teachers, I was determined to make choice the theme that made this resource-based website different. As you explore and use WritingFix's resources, watch for the choices each resource offers young writers.
A fine example of one of our interactive, choice-based writing prompts is below: the interactive plot creator, which was one of the first twenty prompts that began WritingFix in 2001.
August's Featured
Writing Lesson
