Episode Guide

1. First Steps Provides an overview of the first steps teachers should take when working with student writers. The educators, researchers, and writers featured in the video programs talk about specific goals they share with their students, recognizing the local, state, and national standards that serve as a floor, not a ceiling, for their work.

2. A Shared Path Talks about the physical set-up of a writing community, the importance of reading in a writing classroom, and their own roles as co-writers in the community, showing how these practicalities and philosophies actually work in setting up communities where trust and mutual respect are the hallmarks.

3. Different Audiences Begins by examining the “self” most writers address, showing how the concept of writing for an audience is threaded throughout the dynamic and nonlinear processes of writing.

4. Different Purposes Purpose directly relates to the form or genre selected to express writers’ ideas. In this session, the teachers examine this relationship, presenting classroom examples of students working in many genres, including persuasive writing, memoir, and poetry.

5. Usage and Mechanics Focuses directly on key questions of grammar and mechanics: When should student writers and reviewers of student work pay attention to usage and mechanics? Does teaching grammar in context really work? Why should these things matter?

6. Providing Feedback on Student Writing Student writing demands reaction—from both teachers and other members of the writing community. But what kind of interaction is most powerful and rewarding?

7. Learning from Professional Writers What can young writers learn from those who make their living through writing? Educators, researchers, and noted authors consider this question, offering innovative ways to bring the voice of the professional into the classroom. Teachers show how professional works by favorite writers can be the seeds for engaging classroom activities, while authors talk about their own writing processes and writing heroes.

8. Writing in the 21st Century Evolving technology has expanded the tools available to all writers. It has also opened new venues—with new requirements—for their work. How can teachers make the best use of these new resources?