Text Structures From Fairy Tales: Truisms That Help Students Write About Abstract Concepts . . . and Live Happily Ever After, Grades 4-12 (Corwin Literacy)

Standardized tests and college essay prompts demand that students produce quality analytical writing about abstract concepts. But how do you actually teach this kind of writing? Award-winning authors Gretchen Bernabei and Judi Reimer make it easy and fun. This book includes 35 engaging lessons that give students just the focused practice they need to craft effective, analytical writing for any situation. 

Centered on classic fairy tales and designed for students of all ages, each lesson includes a writing prompt accompanied by a planning framework. Students write a truism, select or create a text structure, and write a kernel essay that serves as scaffolding for a detailed rhetorical piece. With practice, students move from depending on teacher guidance to becoming autonomous analytical writers. The teacher-friendly layout and built-in flexibility of the book empower you to 

• Use each fairy tale lesson for reading, for writing, or for both 
• Cluster lessons around a particular literacy concept or use each as a standalone lesson 
  
• Pair fairy tales thematically with other readings 
  
• Customize the text structure options to meet the needs of your individual students 
  
• Encourage students to create their own text structures 
  
• Teach students simple ways to expand their ideas into detailed, rich essays 
• Additional ideas for how to use the lessons, a complete collection of text structures, craft lessons on revision, and a list of conversation strategies are also included.

Put Text Structures From Fairy Tales to work in your classroom and soon your students will be writing happily ever after. 

A popular workshop presenter and winner of NCTE’s James Moffett Award in 2010, Gretchen Bernabei has been teaching kids to write in middle school and high school classrooms for more than thirty years. In addition to four other professional books and numerous articles for NCTE journals, she is the author of National Geographic School Publications’ The Good Writer’s Kit, as well as Lightning in a Bottle, a CD of visual writing prompts.

Judi Reimer taught fourth grade in San Antonio, Texas, for seventeen years and continues to advise students and school districts. She has worked as a freelance writer, contributing columns and features for Parents, Ladies’ Home Journal, and other national magazines. Judi has also written articles for Studies Weekly classroom publications and has been a freelance writer for American Legacy Publishing.