Creating Writers [antikvár]

FOREWORD Creating Writers reminds me of the sun. It casts light in dark places, warms what it touches, and causes things to grow. The message embodied in Creating Writers supports writing instructors as teachers, learners, and writers. Spandel and Stiggins encourage teachers to participate in the writing process, to share the power of assessment, and to strengthen instruction by helping students understand exactly what makes good writing work. Offering second-generation insights, they provide practitioners with the language, the knowledge, and the practical direction they need to teach and to assess writing with confidence. Not only does Creating Writers support experienced educators, the book also gives the novice teacher or newcomer to writing instruction a vocabulary and structure for communicating with student writers. By showcasing the language of writing, by providing real student samples with in-depth discussion of strengths and problems, and by revealing how thoughtful assessment truly supports a process-based approach, the authors demonstrate the satori—the "aha"—of enlightened writing instruction. Creating Writers warms what it touches by identifying and recognizing what is positive and expressive in all student writing. The message of this book is that student writers can succeed and that they learn most efficiently by identifying and building upon their strengths: in ideas and content, voice, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, and the conventions of good writing. The authors recognize the equality of these traits and clarify, through many examples, how all must work in harmony to capture the moment. Who knows how much is possible once we help yoimg writers to fully recognize what it is they do well and give them the tools they need to write and revise with ever growing expertise? Skillful assessment—practiced not just by teachers but by students as well—nurtures understanding. When the pedagogy espoused by Spandel and Stiggins is applied in classrooms, ideas and students blossom. Writers IX