The Struggling Writer: Strategies to Help Kids Focus, Build Stamina, and Develop Writing Confidence

Helps students hone the skills and build the confidence they need to succeed as competent, creative writers.

Struggling writers need personalized, focused, and assessment-informed instruction. Angelillo shows teachers how to provide their students with three levels of support: 1) self-monitoring strategies that enable students to start writing, build writing stamina, manage their time, and stay focused on a topic; 2) classroom community resources which create a safe, supportive environment in which to write; and 3) best practices drawn from writer's workshop including student choice in writing topics, discovering one's voice as a writer, and time out to conference, reflect, and assess.

• Strategies for helping kids find writing topics they are passionate about and expand selfselected topics into longer writing.
• Techniques for using discussion, story-telling, and sketching as ways to promote writing (especially helpful for developing writers and English Language Learners).
• Suggestions for specific mentor texts to support and extend student writing; word study guidelines to expand vocabulary.
• Ready-to-use assessment forms and selfreflective student guides.

Janet Angelillo is a literacy consultant who works with elementary and middle-school teachers in urban and suburban schools across the United States and Canada. A classroom educator for many years, Janet is the author of Fresh Approach to Teaching Punctuation, Making Revision Matter, and Grammar Study: Helping Students Get What Grammar Is and How It Works.