The Reading Strategies Book made the New York Times Best Seller List by making it simpler to match students’ needs to high-quality instruction. Now, in The Writing Strategies Book, Jen Serravallo does the same, collecting 300 of the most effective strategies to share with writers, and grouping them beneath 10 crucial goals.
“You can think of the goals as the what, “writes Jen, “and the strategies as the how.” From composing with pictures all the way to conventions and beyond, you’ll have just-right teaching, just in time. With Jen’s help you’ll:
- develop individual goals for every writer
- give students step-by-step strategies for writing with skill and craft
- coach writers using prompts aligned to a strategy
- present mentor texts that support a genre and strategy
- adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen’s Teaching Tips
- demonstrate and explain a writing move with her Lesson Language
- learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher–authors.
She even offers suggestions for stocking your writing center, planning units of study, celebrating student writing, and keeping records.
Whether you use Writing Workshop, 6+1 Traits, Daily 5’s “Work on Writing,” a scripted writing program, the writing exercises in your basal, or any other approach, you’ll discover a treasure chest of ways to work with whole classes, small groups, or individual writers.
“I am convinced that helping kids to articulate clear goals for their work,” writes Jen Serravallo, “and supporting them with strategies and feedback to accomplish those goals, makes a huge difference.” With The Writing Strategies Book you can make that kind of difference with your writers every day.
Jennifer Serravallo is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning educator, literacy consultant, frequent speaker at state and national conferences, and former member of the Parents Magazine editorial board. In 2023, she launched her podcast To the Classroom: Conversations with Researchers and Educators. Jen is best known for creating books and resources rooted in research that help make responsive, strategic, differentiated literacy instruction possible for all teachers.
Her newest books are THE READING STRATEGIES BOOK 2.0 (2023), TEACHING WRITING IN SMALL GROUPS (March 2021), A TEACHER'S GUIDE TO READING CONFERENCES (2019), and UNDERSTANDING TEXTS AND READERS (2018). Her books and resources are used around the world: THE WRITING STRATEGIES BOOK (2017) and THE READING STRATEGIES BOOK (1st edition) (2015) have have been translated into French, Chinese, and Spanish.
Her comprehension assessment and teaching resources, COMPLETE COMPREHENSION: FICTION and COMPLETE COMPREHENSION: NONFICTION, help teachers make sense of comprehension, especially in whole chapter books and book-length nonfiction texts. They were released in Spring 2019 and are available through Heinemann (Learn more: hein.pub/cc).
Jen holds a BA from Vassar College and an MA from Teachers College, where she has also taught graduate and undergraduate classes.
Follow Jen on Twitter (@jserravallo) and Instagram (@jenniferserravallo), learn more from her website/blog: and join the Literacy Strategies Facebook Community.
