Writing Lab and Your Grade

Lessons for each quarter


Much of the material for the writing lab is based on:
Atwell, Nancie.  In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning. 2nd Ed. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1998, especially pages 107, 111, 112, and 115.

Most of the Lessons came from two sources:
Atwell, Nancie.  Lessons that Change Writers.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 2002. 
Burke, Jim.  50 Essential Lessons.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 2006. 

Except for Lessons about sentence structure in the second quarter, which came from:
Killgallon, Don.  Sentence Composing for Middle School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997. 
Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999. 

A few other lessons came from:
Bickman, Jack.  The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.  Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1992. 
Bomer, Randy.  Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle & High School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1995. 
Gardner, Traci.  Traci's Lists of Ten.  http://tengrrl.com/tens/.
Knott, William.  The Craft of Fiction.  Reston, VA: Reston  Publishing (Prentice-Hall), 1983. 
LeGuin, Ursula.  Steering the Craft: Exercises on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew.  Portland Oregon: Eight Mountain Press, 1998. 
Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999. 
Saitz, Raymond.  Outta Ray's Head.  http://www.cgocable.net/~rayser/index.htm
Willis, Meredith Sue.  Deep Revision: A Guide for Teachers, Students, and Other Writers.  New York: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 1993.

Your Grade

Mondays: Assigned Essays
Each week will start with an assigned essay.  I will guide you through these essays step by step.  We will begin by focusing on good examples vs. poor ones. 

Early in the year, if you are unable to complete it within the hour, I will allow you to turn it in Tuesday morning.  Later, I will ask for it to be done in one class period.  This is excellent way for you to show off your writing skills, and also good training for standardized tests.   

We will use this rubric. 

Notes, Lessons, and Quizzes: 

Lessons are short instructions and exercises.  They will generally be given in the beginning of the hour. They may be focused on more general topics such as punctuation, grammar, how to write an introduction, etc.  There may be a short assignment based on the lesson just given.  They will usually be due at the end of the hour, or first thing the following day. 

Writing Lab

In the writing lab, students will work on individual projects.  With the individual project, a student will have much more freedom about what he or she wants to write about, how long it will be, and how much time he or she wants to spend on it.