Project-Based Writing: Teaching Writers to Manage Time and Clarify Purpose - Softcover

Tovani, Cris; Prather, Liz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0325089809 ISBN 13: 9780325089805

Publisher: HEINEMANN, 2017

Synopsis

The idea that students should be "college and career ready" when they leave high school has become a major focus in education, but much of this conversation has been on reading readiness. What about writing readiness?

Liz Prather argues that we can set students up for future success when we help them learn to care about what they're writing, and help them manage their time to write. "I needed a framework for teaching writing that would keep my students accountable and engaged," Liz explains, "but would allow them to write from their own passions, and instill in them an understanding of time management, goal setting, and production. By adding the tenets and practices of project-based learning, I could simultaneously protect the creative processes of my students while helping them learn to manage long term writing projects, the kind of projects they would be doing in college or in a career."

Project-Based Writing provides a 7 step structure to conceive, manage, and deliver writing projects built upon student voice and student choice. Liz includes classroom-tested strategies for helping kids persevere through roadblocks, changes in direction, failed attempts, and most importantly, "anticipate the tricks of that wily saboteur, Time." Both practical and inspirational, Project-Based Writing teaches kids the real-world lessons they need to become real-world writers.

"With this book, you will quite likely become the person students remember as the one who taught them how to write."-Cris Tovani

About this title

About the Author

Liz Prather is a writing teacher at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, a magnet arts program at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky. A classroom teacher with 21years of experience teaching writing at both the secondary and post-secondary level, Liz is also a professional freelance writer and holds a MFA from the University of Texas-Austin. Liz is the author of Project-Based Writing: Teaching Writers to Manage Time and Clarify Purpose, and Story Matters: Teaching Teens to Use the Tools of Narrative to Argue and Inform.

Review

"As I read Liz Prather's book, I thought to myself, 'This teacher-author knows me. She knows my struggles. She knows what I care about as a writing teacher, and most importantly, she knows the wide range of students I teach.' Liz shows teachers how to balance authentic, engaging writing instruction with the responsibility of meeting standards to prepare students for college and beyond. She understands that choice drives engagement, and that when students have a purpose or an opportunity to investigate something they are curious about, the desire to write well increases."
--Cris Tovani, author of I Read It, But I Don't Get It
"In Project-Based Writing, Prather takes bold steps toward Donald Murray's vision for the writing classroom—one buzzing with the energy and ethos of a newsroom full of writers pursuing their passions in many different forms. This book is full of the practical tools teachers need to help their students manage the monumental task of writing: calendars, checklists, guidelines for peer feedback, practical solutions for assessment. Prather's humor, writerly wisdom, and flexible approach to the writing workshop will develop students' skills and courage so they can tackle any writing task they can dream up."
--Rebekah O Dell, coauthor of Writing With Mentors
"This book is full of gifts. The gift of Prather's engaging, often humorous, smart-as-heck writing. The gift of tools for both teacher and student—book lists, calendars, forms—to help them manage the deeply individual process of writing. The gift of copious use-in-your-classroom tomorrow activities and exercises to build and nurture a writing community. But perhaps the most special gift of all is Prather's genuine belief that students have the ability to create and self-direct—and her absolute dedication to providing them the space and time to do just that."
--Allison Marchetti, coauthor of Writing With Mentors

Edition details

• Publisher: HEINEMANN
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0325089809
• ISBN 13: 9780325089805
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224