About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers

About the Authors is about the littlest authors - those in kindergarten through second grade. Based on a profound understanding of the ways in which young children learn, it shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally - make stuff. So why not write books?

Gifted educator and author of the best-selling What You Know by Heart (Heinemann, 2002), Katie Wood Ray has seen young authors do just that. And she wants your students to be able to do the same. Beautifully describing young children in the act of learning, she demonstrates what it takes to nourish writing right from the start:

• a supportive environment that enables even the youngest students to write
• respect and sensitivity to the way children really learn
• inviting instruction that both encourages and elevates young writers
• rich language that stimulates writing
• classroom talk and children's literature that energize young writers
• developmental considerations that shape the structure of the workshop, making it natural, joyful, and absolutely appropriate.

What's more, Ray explains step by step how to set up and maintain a primary writing workshop, detailing eleven units of study that cover idea generation, text structures, different genres, and illustrations that work with text. She also draws on data, projects, and the language of teaching used in the classroom of first-grade teacher Lisa Cleaveland. Ray allows readers to "listen in" to Lisa as she helps her young students learn from professional writers, work with intention, and think about their own process.

Chockfull of examples of little books by young children, About the Authors is proof positive that a primary writing workshop is a smart writing move.

About the Authors is about the littlest authors - those in kindergarten through second grade. Based on a profound understanding of the ways in which young children learn, it shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally - make stuff. So why not write books?

Gifted educator and author of the best-selling What You Know by Heart (Heinemann, 2002), Katie Wood Ray has seen young authors do just that. And she wants your students to be able to do the same. Beautifully describing young children in the act of learning, she demonstrates what it takes to nourish writing right from the start: a supportive environment that enables even the youngest students to writerespect and sensitivity to the way children really learninviting instruction that both encourages and elevates young writersrich language that stimulates writingclassroom talk and children's literature that energize young writersdevelopmental considerations that shape the structure of the workshop, making it natural, joyful, and absolutely appropriate.What's more, Ray explains step by step how to set up and maintain a primary writing workshop, detailing eleven units of study that cover idea generation, text structures, different genres, and illustrations that work with text. She also draws on data, projects, and the language of teaching used in the classroom of first-grade teacher Lisa Cleaveland. Ray allows readers to listen in to Lisa as she helps her young students learn from professional writers, work with intention, and think about their own process.

Chockfull of examples of little books by young children, About the Authors is proof positive that a primary writingworkshop is a smart writing move.

Based on a profound understanding of the ways in which young children learn, this book shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally - make stuff.

Between her passion for elementary writing instruction and a love of children's literature, Katie Wood Ray found herself asking, "What if children were introduced to key qualities of good writing in the context of illustrations?" This question led to the research behind In Pictures and In Words. The answer was simple yet powerful: "The thinking students do while reading picture books can help them see the connection between what words and illustrations do to make meaning." As an author of bestselling Heinemann books such as Already Ready, Study Driven, About the Authors, and What You Know By Heart and as a member of Heinemann Professional Development Services, Katie has always given teachers resources and PD that transform writing instruction and help children discover a lifelong love of writing. A former Associate Professor at Western Carolina University Katie is now a full time writer and researcher of the teaching of writing. With a particular focus on the study of writing craft, she leads teacher workshops and summer institutes across the nation related to the teaching of writing. Her professional background includes both elementary and middle school teaching experience and two years as a staff developer at The Reading and Writing Project, Teachers College, Columbia University. She was also the coeditor of the journal Primary Voices K-6, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. Katie is also the author or coauthor of Spelling in Use: Looking Closely at Spelling in the Whole Language Classrooms (1996, NCTE), Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classroom (1999, NCTE), and The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (And Theyre All Hard Parts) (2001, NCTE). A frequent speaker at conferences and summer institutes around the country, Katie also has extensive experience teaching teachers in workshop and demonstration settings. Katie Wood Ray is a Heinemann Professional Development presenter. EC0410The 2002 recipient of the prestigious NCTE/Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing, Lisa B. Cleaveland is a first-grade teacher at Jonathan Valley Elementary School in Waynesville, North Carolina, where she conducts a writing workshop every morning at 9:00 am sharp.

Building a Strong Foundation

Writing Workshop: A Happy Place Where We Make Stuff

Work, Space, and Time: Writing Workshop Right from the Start

Wrapping Strong Arms Around the Writing Workshop: Children Learning About Language All Day Long

How Our Youngest Writers Use the Writing Process to Help Them Make Books

Understanding the Teaching

Looking Closely at Minilessons: Whole-Class Teaching That Fills the Workshop with Possibilities

Organizing for Thoughtful Instruction with Units of Study

Assessment: Learning All We Can About the Authors

Teaching Into and Out of the Work of Individual Children: Writing Conferences and Share Times

An Overview of Units of Study

A. The Kinds of Things Writers Make and How We'll Make Them in This Room

B. Where Writers Get Ideas

C. How to Read Like Writers

D. Finding Writing Mentors

E. How to Structure Texts in Interesting Ways

F. How to Make Illustrations Work Better with Written Text

G. How to Have Better Peer Conferences

H. Literary Nonfiction

How to Use Punctuation in Interesting Ways

J. Poetry

K. Revision