Primary - Writing Magazine 2021

A selection
of useful
resources
Primary
Writing

Welcome to Writing Workshop:
Engaging Today’s Students with a
Model that Works
Shubitz & Fordma (2019)
Through strategic routines, tips, advice, and resources, as well as
short, focused video clips, teachers can create the sights and sounds
of a thriving writing workshop in their F-6 classrooms where:
• Students look forward to writing, and spend most of their
time doing it-not just learning about it
• Student choice is encouraged to help create engaged
writers
• Students are part of the formative assessment process,
managing their own growth as writers
• Students will look forward to writing
This book is a great introduction to the writing workshop. It
provides examples of what the teacher and students should be
doing in each part of the workshop and gives practical activities for
teachers who are new to writing workshop.

Teach Writing Well:
How to Assess Writing, Invigorate
Instruction, and Rethink
Culham (2018)
This book shows you how to assess and teach writing in a way
that’s practical and achievable.
Part 1 walks you through the traits of writing and their key
qualities, showing step by step how to read students’ writing
and offer feedback that nudges them forward through the
revision process.
Part 2 focuses on instruction, offering specific guidance for
how to use what you’ve learned from reading student writing
to design lessons that scaffold students toward making their
own craft decisions and revisions. In addition, there’s an
entire chapter devoted to mentor texts that you can use to
model traits and key qualities for your students.

Hidden Gems: Naming and
Teaching from the Brilliance in
Every Student’s
Bomer (2010)
This book focuses on building teacher capacity to name and
notice the strengths in student writing.
Bomer discusses the importance of the admiring lens and
provides advice on giving effective feedback to students
including:
• spot hidden stylistic gems in writing that are
unconventional or vernacular
• uncover content and organisational gems even when
you don't find the subject matter engaging or
significant
• respond by naming and celebrating writers' gems
instead of hunting for mistakes

Notebook Know How: Strategies
for the Writer’s Notebook
Buckner (2005)
This book shows teachers how to transform the Writer's
Notebook from just a place to write stuff down, to a vital,
constantly evolving tool for each individual child. From
notebook set up, tips, lessons and questions of whether to
evaluate the notebook, Buckner gives teachers a lot to
consider.
Some teacher questions Buckner addresses include:
• How do I launch the notebook?
• What mini-lessons can be used throughout the year to
help students become more skilled in keeping
notebooks?
• How can writer’s notebooks help students become
better readers?
• How do I assess notebooks?

The Writing Strategies Book
Serravallo (2017)
This book has 300 effective strategies for teaching. They have
been grouped beneath 10 crucial goals. This book supports
teachers to:
• provide students step-by-step strategies for writing
with skill and craft
• coach writers using prompts aligned to a strategy
• present mentor texts that support a genre and strategy
• adjust instruction to meet individual needs
• demonstrate and explain a writing move
• provide feedback to young writers
There are suggestion for stocking your writing centre, planning
units of study, celebrating student writing, keeping records
ideas for anchor charts and examples of student work.

Igniting Writing: When a
Teacher Writes
Wright (2011)
This book is a passionate portrayal of the journey teachers
go on when they decide to write for and with their young
writers.
Alan takes you through the approach of modelling and
demonstrating writing for students as they struggle and
learn from the challenges, and joys of becoming confident
writers and communicators.
When your students see that writing is something you do
too, a sense of community is created in the classroom and
you become more credible as a teacher of writing. The
results are happier, more resourceful students who aren't
turned off by the idea of writing, and benefits that can be
seen in all subjects involving literacy.

The Write Genre
Rog & Kropp (2010)
This book is organized around six writing genres, more than
fifty mini-lessons deal with specific skills that help students
write effective fiction and nonfiction in such genres as:
• Personal memoir
• Fictional narrative
• Informational report
• Persuasive and Procedural writing
• Poetry
The book also offers chapters devoted to the writing process,
writing workshop, and using rubrics for instruction and
assessment using the 6 Traits.

6+1 Traits of Writing:
The Complete Guide for the
Primary Grades
This book introduces each trait in depth. It
examines samples of students’ writing
looking for evidence of the traits.
This would be a useful book study to build
teacher knowledge of each of the traits.
It is designed for teachers up to year 3.
Culham (2005)

6+1 Traits of Writing:
The Complete Guide Grades 3
and Up
This book introduces each trait in depth. It
examines samples of students’ writing
looking for evidence of the traits.
This would be a useful book study to build
teacher knowledge of each of the traits.
It is designed for teachers of years 3 - 6
Culham (2007)

Traits of Writing:
The Complete Guide for Middle
School
This book introduces each trait in depth. It
examines samples of students’ writing
looking for evidence of the traits.
This would be a useful book study to build
teacher knowledge of each of the traits.
It is designed for teachers of years 5 - 8
Culham (2010)

The No-Nonsense Guide to
Teaching Writing
Davis & Hill (2003)
Authors Judy Davis and Sharon Hill are two expert
teachers who have lived the teaching of writing
from inside the classroom. This book is a guide
packed with practical ideas, tools and thoughtful
strategies for your classroom.
There are several units of study included.
Davis and Hill help teachers prepare tools, address
management issues, get the work started, and
build momentum as students increase their
understanding of good writing practice.

Writing Workshops:
The Essential Guide
Fletcher & Portalupi (2001)
A valuable resource for developing and
maintaining a writing workshop in the classroom.
The authors lay out each step in the writing
workshop process, including strategies, ideas and
the foundational classroom principles necessary
for incorporating successful writing workshops
into each student’s daily schedule.
Each chapter details how a specific component of
the writing workshop looks, functions and is
taught.

A Teacher's Guide to Getting
Started with Beginning Writers
Ray & Cleaveland (2018)
This book looks at how teachers can get
beginning writers creating books from
their very first week at school!
It includes links to videos and has lots of
food for thought about setting
beginning writers up for success.

A Teacher’s Guide to Writing
Conferences: Grades K-8
Anderson (2018)
In this book Anderson explores the different paths a writing
conference can take and gives teachers advice for making
these useful for the writer including:
• how to get started with conferring, or improve your
existing conferences
• how to use conferences to meet the diverse needs of
your student writers
• how to fit conferences into your busy writing workshop
schedule.
The book includes links to high quality videos that would be
excellent PD for any group of teachers wanting to learn more
about teaching and conferring with writers.

The Literacy Teacher’s
Playbook: Grades K-2
Helps teachers ensure that each student finds his or her
path to meeting their learning goals. Serravallo’s four-step
protocol leads teacher towards goal-directed instruction:
• collect the data
• analyse the data
• synthesise data
• develop instructional plans
• follow-ups to monitor progress.
Designed for Grades F-2
Serravallo (2014)

The Literacy Teacher’s
Playbook: Grades 3-6
Helps teachers ensure that each student finds his or her
path to meeting their learning goals. Serravallo’s four-step
protocol leads teacher towards goal-directed instruction:
• collect the data
• analyse the data
• synthesise data
• develop instructional plans
• follow-ups to monitor progress.
Designed for Grades 3-6
Serravallo (2013)

First Grade Writers
Parsons (2005)
This book includes five specific units of study for your
writing workshop that help students prepare thoughtfully to
write.
The units also help children to differentiate the planning and
organisation needed to write fiction, personal narrative,
nonfiction, Q & A books and pattern books.
Each unit is concise, logically laid-out descriptions of how
each unit of study operates, a variety of helpful tables,
charts, and assessment diagnostics, as well as elaborations,
teaching points for minilessons and conferences,
troubleshooting tips, and month-by-month planning
assistance.

Second Grade Writers
Parsons (2007)
This book includes five specific units of study for
your writing workshop that help students prepare
thoughtfully to write.
Each type of writing has a different purpose and
audience and the units of study include concise,
logically laid-out descriptions of how each one
operates, a variety of helpful tables, charts, and
assessment diagnostics, as well as elaborations,
teaching points for minilessons and conferences,
troubleshooting tips, and month-by-month
planning assistance.