What a Writer Needs

The work of Donald Graves, Lucy Calkins, Donald Murray, Nancie Atwell, and others has led to a whole generation of writing process workshops where children write, share, revise, and publish their work with confidence. But teachers today have a number of new concerns, mainly: Now that my students are writing, how do I help them improve the quality of that writing? What A Writer Needs answers this concern. In engaging, anecdotal prose, Ralph Fletcher provides a wealth of specific, practical strategies for challenging and extending student writing. There are chapters on details, the use of time, voice, character, beginnings and endings, among others. The work of student and professional writers is sprinkled throughout the book, and a generous bibliography of picture books and novels is provided. As Donald Murray writes in the foreword, Ralph Fletcher "builds sturdy bridges from the writer's studio to the elementary and middle school classroom." This is a book for writing teachers as well as for teachers who write. The thorough exploration of literary techniques will make it useful and appealing to reading teachers as well. I have read-and bought- most of the books on writing published since I was in high school half a century ago and mot of the books on teaching writing since 1963, and I have not read another book that does what this one does." From the Foreword by Donald M. Murray.Ralph Fletcher is the author of 'What a Writer Needs', published 1992 under ISBN 9780435087340 and ISBN 0435087347.