Teaching Adolescent Writers

As an 8th grade language arts teacher, I have found _Deeper Reading_ and _Reading Reasons_, Gallagher's other teaching titles, to be positively indispensible, so I expected nothing less from his latest work. Once again, Gallagher delivers! This is a straightforward, practical, and yes, funny, book for effective writing instruction in secondary classrooms. Gallagher's fresh, ready-to-use strategies are based upon what he calls the "six pillars of writing success," which are: -students need a lot more writing practice; -students need teachers who model good writing; -students need the opportunity to read and study other writers; -students need choice when it comes to writing topics; -students need to write for authentic purposes and to authentic audiences, and; -students need meaningful feedback from both the teacher and their peers. Gallagher offers ideas for daily in-class writing opportunities, activities to help generate high-interest topics, strategies for "attacking" on-demand writing, mini-lessons to guide students through deeper revision, alternatives to peer editing (which he says doesn't work), and suggestions for more effective grading. His lessons are geared to teach students the real-world writing skills they will need not just for success in the English classroom but for the long haul. This is a must-have for veteran and novice teachers alike. I, too, have had the opportunity to attend one of Gallagher's workshops, and in my view, the man is simply genius. Through it all, Gallagher reminds us that we are not superhuman. In view of the mounting pressure so many of us feel to raise the all-mighty test scores, I found the following quote most reassuring: "With the wide range of ability and overwhelming class sizes, it is unrealistic to think I am going to make every one of my 165 students a strong writer. It *is* realistic, however, to begin each year with the goal that every student of mine, regardless of ability, is going to get better." Armed with Gallagher's book, I feel a renewed sense of confidence that my teaching is going to get better, too. Two thumbs way up!

Kelly Gallagher manages to include important information about best practices in a way that is immediately useful for the classroom teacher. An excellent book for high school English teachers or professional developers working with high school teachers!!!

I had the pleasure of going to a conference and hearing Kelly Gallagher speak. He's a down-to-earth, realistic guy and so is his approach to teaching writing. He outlines ways to get students interested in writing and it's very adaptable to my classroom. His chapter on combatting how to keep up with grading was the most useful for me.

If you teach writing, you must buy this book. Gallagher gives the teacher something he/she can actually use- this book doesn't just talk about writing. Within the first 40 pages, the writing teacher is presented with useful teaching tools. An easy read, very useful - this book is a must-have.

In "Teaching Adolescent Writers", author and academician Kelly Gallagher draws upon his many years of expertise as a full-time English teacher at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California, to show novice classroom instructors how to teach their students to write effectively. Gallagher offers classroom tested strategies for helping teachers to understand the importance of teaching writing, motivate their students to develop and improve their writing skills, model effective writing using the teacher's own compositions and real-world texts, provide alternatives and choice within the framework of a rigorous curriculum, help their students recognize the importance of purpose and audience with respect to their writing efforts, and how to assess essays in ways that produce better writing performance. Infused with humor and enhanced with illustrative anecdotes, "Teaching Adolescent Writers" is an ideal addition to college and university curriculums for aspiring English teachers.