Peer Coaching for Adolescent Writers

"Susan Ruckdeschel provides a clear rationale for having student writers coach each other as they revise their work. Her explanations, examples, practical tips, and reproducibles enable teachers to use the process successfully in their own classrooms. This peer review process is straightforward, engaging, and flexible, and aims to develop students′ independence as writers."
―Denise Nessel, Education Consultant and Mentor
National Urban Alliance for Effective Education

Help students develop their "inner editor" through the power of peer coaching!

Students who understand how to analyze the writing of others can use those skills to improve their own writing. Peer coaching is a collaborative process that engages learners in student-to-student interactions to help them become more proficient writers. Susan Ruckdeschel provides a concise road map for using peer coaching to help secondary students clarify their writing goals and deepen their understanding of effective writing.

Aligned with state and IRA/NCTE standards, Peer Coaching for Adolescent Writers shows teachers how to teach students to articulate a purpose for their writing, formulate questions for feedback, provide constructive comments to their peers, and incorporate the critiques of their peers into their writing. Designed for ease of use, this book offers:

• Clear, step-by-step tips for implementing the peer coaching process
• Ideas for using peer coaching across content areas
• An appendix of ready-to-go reproducible forms, including scripts, checklists, rubrics, and more
• Transcripts, photos, and classroom examples throughout
• Adaptations for students with special needs and English language learners

By developing their writing and editing skills through the peer review process, students can become effective communicators both in and out of the classroom.

As a reading specialist, Susan Ruckdeschel pioneered many school and district writing initiatives, beginning in 1991 with the school’s first school writing club in the Naples Jr./Sr. High School in the Finger Lakes Region of New York state. It was the breeding ground for the student peer coaching model used in her book Peer Coaching for Adolescent Writers, quickly expanding to other districts both inside and outside of classroom instruction to include the Glens Falls Middle School in Glens Falls, NY; The Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk, VA; and the Hawthorne PEARLS School in Yonkers, NY.

Ruckdeschel is completing a doctoral program in educational leadership at the University of Phoenix, with a focus on curriculum and instruction. She holds several NYS teaching certifications, including Reading K-12, English 7-12, Classroom N-6, School District Administrator, and Gifted and Talented Extension. Ruckdeschel has taught and operated within each of these certification areas throughout many years of teaching and consulting in public schools for organizations, including the National Urban Alliance, Pearson Learning Group, and Houghton Mifflin. As founder of Literacy Solutions, she consults in districts throughout the country on curriculum and professional development, while teaching as adjunct instructor at the University of Phoenix Online. Ruckdeschel continues to maintain ongoing writing workshops for student writers in the Mid-Hudson Valley region of New York state, training them to be effective peer coaches while nurturing their budding writing efforts. Ruckdeschel graduated from Nazareth College of Rochester in 1991 with a Masters of Science in Education.