Acts of Teaching: How to Teach Writing

Carroll and Wilson have taken their successful Acts of Teaching into the 21st Century with this totally revised second edition. While maintaining the best of Acts, Acts II moves the paradigm into the global age. Comprehensive, innovative, and practical, and with forewords by two of the most noted scholars in the field, Janet Emig and Edmund J. Farrell, this text offers educators a powerful approach to teaching writing. Rather than repetitive exercises, it focuses on engagement and interaction so students grapple with words and experiences to make meaning.

In Acts II the writing process and assessment gain a new dimension. Recent research supports its content and strategies while cognitive development and neurological theories, early literacy, inquiry, and writing as a mode of learning across all disciplines and grade levels have been invigorated. Topics include students, shifts, and skills for the global age, the writing process and assessment, three chapters on how to teach grammar within the writing process, collaboration, post writing, and publishing. This book meets the needs of anyone writing or teaching writing. Grades PreK-12.

Carroll and Wilson have taken their successful Acts of Teaching into the 21st Century with this totally revised second edition. While maintaining the best of Acts, Acts II moves the paradigm into the global age. Comprehensive, innovative, and practical, and with forewords by two of the most noted scholars in the field, Janet Emig and Edmund J. Farrell, this text offers educators a powerful approach to teaching writing. Rather than repetitive exercises, it focuses on engagement and interaction so students grapple with words and experiences to make meaning.

In Acts II the writing process and assessment gain a new dimension. Recent research supports its content and strategies while cognitive development and neurological theories, early literacy, inquiry, and writing as a mode of learning across all disciplines and grade levels have been invigorated. Topics include students, shifts, and skills for the global age, the writing process and assessment, three chapters on how to teach grammar within the writing process, collaboration, post writing, and publishing. This book meets the needs of anyone writing or teaching writing. Grades PreK-12.

Comprehensive, innovative, and practical, this text offers educators a powerful approach to teaching writing by focusing on engaging students in grappling with words and experiences to make meaning.

VOYA

This updated text focuses on educating teachers with unique ways to engage students in the activity of learning to write. Instead of inundating students with worksheets on grammar, spelling quizzes, and the "right way" to formulate paragraphs, teachers are encouraged to involve students in writing projects that promote the excitement of discovery. In Carroll's writing process, students select the topics that they find important through pre-writing strategies, expanding on them with the teacher's guidance. Various writing styles are discussed, outlining different ways for teachers to model writing exercises in order to generate interest and creativity among students of all ages. Chapters on how to shape student writing, assess writing, edit paragraphs, publish, and write collaboratively give teachers a broad spectrum of writing knowledge. The book's second half elaborates on the growth and development of the brain as it pertains to learning in adolescents, cognitive theories of learning, and connecting with the writer through reading and research. Carroll and Wilson produce a thorough depiction of the writing process and theories of learning, but they cram too much information into one book. A text encompassing the writing process, research skills, and arenas of writing would have been sufficient for teacher education classes. The overuse of literary theories and references to other scholarly works tends to bog down the text, but the samples of student writing and examples of teacher-moderated exercises will be a welcome assistance to first time teachers whether it is elementary school or middle school. Reviewer: Laura Panter

JOYCE ARMSTRONG CARROLL has taught almost all grade levels, was professor of English and Writing at McMurry University, and is co-director of Abydos Learning International, formerly New Jersey Writing Project in Texas (NJWPT), with her husband Edward E. Wilson. Carroll has served as President of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, served on the National Council of Teachers of English's Commission on Composition, and was Chair of NCTE's Standing Committee Against Censorship and has written for numerous books and journals.

EDWARD E. WILSON is co-director of Abydos Learning International, formerly the New Jersey Writing Project in Texas (NJMPT), with his wife Joyce Carroll Armstrong. He has taught at elementary and secondary schools and junior college levels and is a member of NCTE, TCTELA, and ASCD. Wilson is the owner of Absey & Co., a publisher committed to educational excellence and creative works of literary merit.