Improving Students' Writing, K-8: From Meaning-Making to High Stakes!

This manual for teaching all aspects of writing provides examples, rubrics, and how-to's for helping students grow in skills and write for high stakes and "constructed response" tests.

Joan Taylor is a teacher-consultant who works with teachers and students in Title I schools in the Reno/Sparks area of Northern Nevada.  She recently completed a dissertation on A History of Written Composition Instruction in U.S. Elementary Schools.  Her research interests, in addition to historical and current perspectives on writing instruction, are focused on exploring teachers' stories on learning and teaching.

She has been a long-time middle school teacher in Washoe County Schools.  She is also Nevada State Networks Writing Project Co-Director, and during the past several years has authored a number of federally funded state literacy grants from the U.S. Department of Education totaling approximately $53 million.  These include the Nevada Reading Excellence Act and Nevada Reading First grants.