What You Know by Heart: How to Develop Curriculum for Your Writing Workshop

What a delight to read a book on the teaching of writing that is simple, focused, purposeful and concise. Katie Wood Ray writes with determination. It is her goal to birth the writer in each of us. As the reader engages in the reading of her work she midwifes the writing process within the reader in a way that one embraces it and nurtures its growth.The teacher/student in each of us has a life that is rich in experiences and thus embedded with curriculum possibilities. Katie open the readers mind to the world of writing and its possibilities. She writes "We need to know by heart what it is we are trying to teach when we teach...".There are no virgin pages in my copy of her book. It is my goal that the truth found in the reading of her work will become my truth in my teaching of the writing process. A wonderful and necessary read for all teachers. Let's write!

Beware teachers, only read this book if you are ready to dive deeper into what it means to teach writing, as a writer! This is the first book I've read that explicitly breaks down how to use mentor texts and my own writing to support student learning in a writer's workshop. Katie Wood Ray uses wonderful examples of how to write and read like a teacher of writing. The first part of the book provides a process to study our own writing for curriculum development. The second part focuses on mentor texts; using published authors as co-teachers. Her goal is to pomote metacognition in the teachers that read this book and have them change their instruction in a powerful way. This is a slow read, but only because you have to stop to think and apply the concepts. Luckily, she created "Think It Through" boxes to help guide your reflections. I closed this book with a solid understanding of how I can use my own writing and use other authors to teach my writer's workshop. If you are using the writer's workshop approach, but don't consider yourself a writer, read this book. It will help you realze that you already know these things by heart.

There are few books on the market for writing teachers with such warm, insightful, fresh, and practical advice in them as this wonderful text by Katie Wood Ray. Her stories ring true, her advice is sage, and the layout of this piece is a knock out. I especially love the text suggestions to match curriculum statements in the appendix. This is real stuff - and oh, so very needed. My copy is marked up from the first page to the last; I just love this book. Any teacher wanting to make writing work more effectively in their classroom would do well to take this book to heart.