Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing

Melanie Meehan has been the Elementary Writing and Social Studies Coordinator in Simsbury, Connecticut, since 2012. Within that position, she writes curriculum, works with teachers, and strives to send students off into the world as confident writers who love to express their ideas. Melanie is a co-author of Two Writing Teachers, a blog dedicated to the teaching of writing, as well as a regular contributor to Choice and Lead Literacy. She wrote Every Child Can Write, which was published by Corwin Press in October 2019, and she co-authored The Responsive Writing Teacher with Kelsey Sorum, which was published in 2021. You can reach Melanie on Twitter, @MelanieMeehan1.

Introduction Chapter 1: How do I Build and Maintain a Writing Community? Chapter 2: What Should Students Know and Be Able to Do As Writers? Chapter 3: What Are Key Instructional Practices to Know and Use? Chapter 4 How do I Use Assessment For Students' Benefit? Chapter 5: How do you shift agency from teacher to students in the writing classroom? References

Beginning a career in teaching can be overwhelming-Melanie Meehan answers some of the most common questions writing teachers are tackling with a thoughtful approach for turning research into practice in every elementary classroom and empowering early career educators. -- Paula Bourque * Author of Spark! Quick Writes to Kindle Hearts and Minds in Elementary Classrooms and Close Writing: Developing Purposeful Writers in Grades 2-6 * We learn best from each other, and Melanie Meehan does a phenomenal job of emphasizing how writers of all ages grow and learn from constructive criticism, feedback, and thoughtful responders. This is how we learn the importance of a growth mindset and learning how to make connections to our communities and the world around us. Teachers of all years and walks of life will walk away empowered and ready to grow their students across the curriculum. -- Darius Phelps * GAEYC 2016 Childcare Giver of the Year, Educator, Writer, Poet, and Illustrator * New teachers or new-to-workshop teachers will hugely benefit from this text. It gives a high-level overview of strong teaching practices-each supported with examples - and it gives a strong foundation for building a practice that's responsive to students' growth and learning while also being instructionally strong. -- Katie McGrath * Instructional Facilitator Loudoun County Public Schools * Melanie Meehan masterfully weaves together relevant research, classroom examples, and her own experience as a writing mentor, coach, and teacher to paint a picture of the teaching of writing with students at the center. This is the book I wish I had as a new teacher and one I will turn to again and again in mentoring teachers who are new to writing or who want to develop a more meaningful writing instructional practice in their classrooms. -- Christina Nosek * Classroom Teacher and Author * In this not-to-be-missed guide to all-things-writing-workshop, Melanie Meehan thoughtfully shares ideas for creating a classroom community, what to teach writers, different methods of instruction, how to use assessment to move students forward, and ways to help students develop agency as writers and learners. Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing is a book teachers will turn to again and again for guidance, wisdom, tips, tools, and strategies for helping students develop as writers. -- Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski * Third-Grade Teacher * Melanie Meehan emphasizes that building a supportive community of writers starts with teachers who write, as this creates a more responsive and reflective teacher who is ready to support a variety of writing needs. Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing will leave teachers feeling like they are writers. In turn, the students in front of them will share in honoring, reflecting, and cherishing their identity as writers, too. -- Allie Woodruff * First-Grade Classroom Teacher * Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing is not a book about finding what is wrong in student writing and correcting it; this is a book about using every avenue possible-whole group instruction, small group instruction, partner work, charts, thoughtful language (to name just a few!)-to discover all that students know and are able to do, and to invite them into co-crafting the instruction that matches their goals and their aspirations. Not satisfied with dreaming about the kind of writing instruction every child deserves, Melanie Meehan has written the book that maps out how to become a writing teacher worthy of the children we are privileged to teach. -- Shana Franzin * Co-Author, Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk *