Crunchtime: Lessons to Help Students Blow the Roof Off Writing Tests--and Become Better Writers in the Process

“Our schools should be accountable, but do they have to become joyless halls of drudgery? I’m not against measuring student achievement and learning. But can’t we develop lessons that use the best of what we know about learning and about children, lessons informed by research and results, lessons that include color, life, conversation and laughter?” ―Gretchen Bernabei

• Crunchtime is a practical grab-and-go resource for teachers.
• Crunchtime strategies are engaging and fun for students.
• Crunchtime is especially effective in helping struggling writers, including English language learners.

In this eagerly-anticipated teacher resource, master teachers Gretchen Bernabei, Jayne Hover, and Cynthia Candler share writing lessons that are healthy for kids, promote lifelong literacy, and, coincidentally, will help your students blow the roof off of their state test scores. Organized around the writing process―selecting topics, crafting drafts, and polishing finished pieces―explicit lessons engage student writers while shoring up the gaps between learning and testing. Growing out of their own work in Title I schools, Gretchen, Jayne, and Cynthia’s strategies have proven to be especially effective in helping ESL and special education students, not only pass the test, but achieve commended performance. In addition to providing classroom-tested strategies, this practical teaching resource provides a wealth of crunchtime tools (rubrics, reproducibles, and writing samples) minilessons, and lesson plans that will help you teach strategically and position your students for success on their state writing tests and beyond.

Crunchtime includes the following downloadable resources:  4-week planner, writing prompts, and reproducibles.

Gretchen Bernabei has taught middle school and high school for 28 years. An author and an educator, Gretchen’s other books include Why We Must Run with Scissors:  Voice Lessons in Persuasive Writing (2001, Discover Writing Press), Reviving the Essay:  How to Teach Structure Without Formula (2005, Discover Writing Press), Lightning in a Bottle (2003, Trail of Breadcrumbs), Sparklers: High Scoring Test Essays and What We Learn from Them (2007, Trail of Breadcrumbs), The Good Writer’s Guide (2006, Hampton-Brown/National Geographic School Publications) and a chapter in Teaching “The Neglected R” (2007, Heinemann). She currently lives with her husband and two children in San Antonio, Texas.

In her recent Heinemann book, Crunchtime, Gretchen Bernabei and her coauthors Jayne Hover and Cynthia Candler share the strategies they have developed for helping students be successful in the literate world and on writing tests. Growing out of their own work in Title I schools, Gretchen, Jayne, and Cynthia’s strategies have proven to be especially effective in helping ESL and special education students.

In her new book, Crunchtime, Jayne Hover and her coauthors Gretchen Bernabei and Cynthia Candler share with you the strategies they have developed for helping students be successful in the literate world and on the writing tests. Growing out of their own work in Title I schools, Gretchen, Jayne, and Cynthia’s strategies have proven to be especially effective in helping ESL and special education students. A teacher for more than twenty years, Jayne currently teaches 4th grade at Hawthorne Academy and lives with her best friend and husband in Cibolo, Texas.

In her new book, Crunchtime, Cynthia Candler and her coauthors Gretchen Bernabei and Jayne Hover share with you the strategies they have developed for helping students be successful in the literate world and on the writing tests. Growing out of their own work in Title I schools, Gretchen, Jayne, and Cynthia’s strategies have proven to be especially effective in helping ESL and special education students. Cynthia has taught writing in the middle grades for over 20 years and currently is teaching 7th grade in Terrell, Texas.