Rurality is rarely considered or oftentimes completely neglected in conversations about culturally relevant pedagogy. Yet, without a relevant curriculum, students both in and out of rural communities are left with dominant and deficiently positioned narratives about rural people. School librarians must provide counter and critical narratives for…

The Young Writers Program (YWP) is the latest writing workshop to be developed for the classroom. It challenges students to choose a topic and write a novel-length piece based on that topic, without worrying about spelling or grammar. While the foundation of this philosophy is solid, the support and structure of the Young Writers Program website…

Teacher candidates have few opportunities during their teacher preparation coursework to investigate practices associated with eliciting and responding to student writing. This article describes an attempt to address this problem with a searchable online digital archive of student writing, with and without teachers' written feedback, as well…

Notes that some students invent their own styles of poetry, and regularly use them in their writing. Recommends that teachers encourage this. Presents several examples of students' styles. (RS)

Uses students' amusing vocabulary mistakes to discuss vocabulary development. (SR)

Describes activities of college students in a "Poets in Schools" program that brings college students together with students in elementary and secondary schools. Describes how the students devised poetry teaching exercises, and describes three of those exercises (a multimedia approach, using photos and postcards, and poems like trees).…

Describes the Six-Trait Writing Model, developed to aid in student writing and the analyses of K-12 compositions. Defines these six traits as: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Discusses how student writing is scored according to these traits, how teachers can implement the model, and presents research…

Describes an exercise for grade school through high school students that focuses on describing abstract emotions through allegory. Notes that some examples include hate, depression, happiness, and patriotism. Provides examples of student writing from prior trials of this exercise. (PA)

Discusses a form of poetry written for two voices--two side-by-side columns, each read by a different voice. Mentions precedents of this form in art, music, and poetry. Presents examples of fourth grade, high school, and university students' poems written in this form. (RS)

Describes five poetry assignments and presents examples of students' poetry written in response to the assignments. (RS)

Both a guide and an anthology, this book is for teachers (and self-teachers) who would like to explore the list poem, a flexible poetic form that can be used by beginning writers (from kindergarten to 12th grade) as well as by the most sophisticated. The book: offers practical advice on how to teach list poetry; describes how to work with students…

This book contains stories, poems, essays, and letters about nature and animals, fantasy and real life, people, places, and science fiction. Writing selections and art work in the book were chosen by K-12 teachers to reflect the best efforts of their students. A preface and a list of student authors and artists precede the writing selections, and…

This booklet contains a selection of stories written by children for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation Mackenzie's "Write a Good Story and Get Your Name on the Radio" contest, many of which were originally broadcast on a morning information radio program. The booklet's 50 selections are each accompanied by the author's name, grade, and…

Presents 11 strategies writing teachers can use to alleviate writing apprehension and to encourage student writers to feel confident about revealing their thoughts in writing. (SR)

Writing need not be a minefield of run-on sentences, misspellings, and trite expressions, but should serve as a powerful catalyst for learning. Teachers focusing on the writing process in various disciplines take students through prewriting activities, writing a draft, peer review of a draft, revising, editing, rewriting the final draft, and…