Prompted to Writeoffers help for teachers who are preparing their students for "high stakes" writing tests. This book features fifteen in-depth and reproducible lesson units to help students develop proficiency in crafting essays in all subjects, building their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, and assessing the quality of their written work. The lessons cover a variety of essay genres and are useful in preparing students for state-mandated writing tests, school entrance and exit exams, and the SAT. Each lesson includes guided pre-writing and planning activities and concludes with a timed writing task (complete with a revision/edition checklist) and a customized scoring guide. Student writing samples are provided along with extensive instructional and assessment guidance.

This book helps educators improve students’ ability to write clear, coherent essays in response to on-demand writing prompts. While it focuses on students’ abilities to succeed at on-demand writing, it also promotes the teaching of writing as an expression of art and self. For grades 4 -12, it provides examples of responses to narrative and persuasive prompts, and provides savvy advice about what scorers look for.

Student Writers Go the Distance with a Strength-Training Approach Good writers don’t wing it—they have a plethora of skills. They list, picture, circle, strategize and revise to make language come alive. They know what to use and when. Like ace athletes, they are highly trained, well-versed in the techniques found in this lively book. Writing Workouts provides a method for instruction that gives students the fun they want and the targeted skill practice they need. Slinky paragraphs, pop-up poems, paint chip plotting, and many other activities get the serious business of teaching critical and creative writing done. Author Rebecca Harper shows you how to go about it systematically, so writing is tied to relevant lessons and writing standards. Help students learn to: Hone skills in persuasive writing, argument, fiction, poetry, memoir and more Toggle between brief and multi-step writing tasks, to build stamina (and not hyperventilate when faced with complex compositions) Tap into auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, and digital components of crafting Think about word, sentence, and paragraph-level techniques Jump the high-jumps of research writing by getting good at each smaller leap Students in middle school and high school often feel they are forever-sprinting toward a high-stakes writing task. With Writing Workouts, you help students crowd out stress with a strength-training approach to success.

Depth matters! Can a mere fifteen words turn today’s youth into the innovative, ambitious thinkers we need? Yes, contend Jim Burke and Barry Gilmore, because these are the moves that make the mind work and students must learn if they’re to achieve academically. With Academic Moves, Jim and Barry distill each of these 15 powerhouse processes into a potent concision that nevertheless spans core subject areas: Before, during, and after sections offer essential questions, lesson ideas, and activities. Student samples illustrate what to look for and the process for getting there. Culminating tasks include producing an analytic essay, argument, and more. Reproducible rubrics assist with assessment.

An innovative, practical guide for middle and high school teachers, this book is packed with specific ways that technology can help serve the goals of effective writing instruction. It provides ready-to-implement strategies for teaching students to compose and edit written work electronically; conduct Internet inquiry; create blogs, websites, and podcasts; and use text messaging and Twitter productively. The book is grounded in state-of-the-art research on the writing process and the role of writing in content-area learning. Teacher-friendly features include vivid classroom examples, differentiation tips, links to online resources, and reproducible worksheets and forms. The large-size format facilitates photocopying.