Support for Teachers

The Being a Writer program’s intentional design helps teachers hone their skills, both as teachers of writing and as writers themselves. Detailed, easy-to-follow lesson plans include suggestions for managing the writing process, facilitating discussions, assessing the class, and conferring with individual students. Teacher Notes throughout the lessons explain the underlying pedagogy of various activities.

Teacher as Writer

A weekly “Teacher as Writer” section helps teachers cultivate their own writing voice while deepening their appreciation for what students are asked to do in the program. The section includes an inspirational quotation, background about the genre, and prompts and ideas to stimulate the teacher as a writer. Examples include:

Focus on your experiences:

• Who is the most unusual person you ever met?
• What do you like to do on vacation?
• Who influenced you to become a teacher?

Focus on curiosity:

• What part of the world do you wish you knew more about?
• What is the most unusual creature you’ve ever seen up close?
• What current event do you wish you knew more history of?

Writer's Workshop

Teachers familiar with the writer’s workshop concept will experience:

• Using a set of 14–33 selected trade books as good examples of each genre
• Opportunities and prompts to experience and develop as writers themselves
• Grade-level Teacher’s Manuals with 25–30 weeks of lessons for teaching process, genre, and craft, as well as the skills and conventions of grammar and usage
• A set of prepared mini-lessons for additional skill practice to be used at the teacher’s discretion—with lesson materials to model and complementary student materials to respond
• Support for conferring with students