The Stenhouse Blog

The following is the foreword written by Barry Lane for the new book Writing, Redefined by Shawna Coppola.

Below is an excerpt written by Caroline Sweet from the Introduction of Patterns of Power, en español. Caroline joined forces with Jeff Anderson and Whitney La Rocca to create this Spanish adaptation of their popular resource book, Patterns of Power: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Language. In this excerpt, Caroline writes about the importance of teaching in both Spanish and English in bilingual classrooms.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has designated October 20 as the National Day on Writing, so we thought we’d give you some ideas from a few of our Stenhouse writing resources to take back to your classroom.

By Trevor A. Bryan

Here is a wonderful and creative explanation from talented author, Shawna Coppola, of what you can find in her new book, Writing, Redefined, in comic strip format!  

I believe what happens in the first weeks of the school year determines how well one’s entire school year will go. Planning classroom routines in advance of the first day of school allows all members of the classroom community to have their social and/or emotional needs met so you can meet students’ academic needs all year long.

Below is a guest blog post from Ruth Culham, author of Teach Writing Well.

I’ve found that one of the things teachers like least about teaching writing is the paper load. It’s true—when you teach writing well, students write often. When students write often, as they should, they produce many papers to read and respond to. When they produce many papers, sometimes teachers reduce the amount of time they give students to write to save paper. It’s a Catch-22. Students can’t get better without practice, yet the practice swamps even the most dedicated writing teacher.

The following is excerpted from Teach Writing Well: How to Assess Writing, Invigorate Instruction, and Rethink Revision! by Ruth Culham.

Wallets are a commonplace item. But even though the contents may be similar among individuals—credit cards, IDs, cash, photos—the particulars will vary. I have a driver’s license from Oregon, for instance, and you likely have one from another state—but we both have driver’s licenses. Wallets are handy for storing things you need to make a purchase, board a plane, show a picture of a grandchild, share insurance information, and so on.