10 Things Every
Writer Needs to
Know
by Jeff Anderson
Chapter 1-- Motion: Getting and Keeping
Writer’s Motivation (Lisa)
Chapter Overview:
Motion is about encouraging the student to
write without “fright.” Getting anything on paper
will do. The goal is to write as much as possible
as quickly and excellent as possible.
Chapter 1-- Motion: Getting and Keeping
Writer’s Motivated (Lisa)
“Power Writing”
“In sports, we practice. We build our speed and agility.
Writers do this too.”- Jeff Anderson
* Choose one of the following words: Avoid or Pickle
* Write it at the top of your page
* When I say “go,” write for one minute using the word
at least once. Write as much as you can, as fast as you
can, as well as you can.
*Whatever comes to your mind, write.
Chapter 1--Motion: Getting and Keeping
Writer’s Motivated (Lisa)
* Write for one minute. It can’t be wrong as long as you
write something. “Go!”
* “Stop writing. Lift your pencil up in the air.
* Draw a line underneath what you just wrote.
* Count the number of words you wrote.
* Record word count under the line.
* Teacher records results for each line on chart.
* Repeat for total of three rounds.
Chapter 2- Models: Using Mentor Texts
(Lisa)
As students are presented with texts that model good
writing and are encouraged to examine the traits of good
writing, they themselves can begin to emulate good writing.
Example:
“ When Dorothy looked stood in the doorway and looked
around, she could see nothing but the gray prairie on every
side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat
country that reached to the edge of the sky in all
directions.” (Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum)
Chapter 2: Models- Using Mentor Texts
(Lisa)
The teacher and students reread and start thinking about
the things they react to with their eyes, ears, and minds.
They discuss the effect this writing has on them and how
and why it occurs.
As students interact with the text and examines how the
author specifically gets a reaction from the reader, the
students are able to repeat it in their own writing.
“Tonight, we’ll go home and stand at our front or back doors and
describe what we see in the front of us. Write a paragraph or so in which
you describe what you see.”
Chapter 3-Focus: Narrowing the Scope (Maria)
Without focus, “writing becomes an overwhelming task.”
Tips that can help FOCUS work for your writing:
● Narrow your topic
● Maintain your focus
● Ask questions
● Simply, WRITE!
● Think about purpose, audience, and scope
● Look for patterns and threads (especially when writing about more
than one topic)
● Capture your focus with leads
● Summarize to hone your focus
Chapter 3-Focus: Narrowing the Scope (Maria)
Ideas:
● Pizza Slice: The metaphor sticks and works
all year. Inspired by Ralph Fletcher and
JoAnn Portalupi’s book, Craft Lessons
(1998).
● Looping: discover your focus by writing and
noticing what surfaces.
Chapter 4-Detail: Selecting the Concrete and Necessary
Make a movie in the reader’s mind!
Details should be selected, not sprayed.
Be an observer of life and texts you read, paying attention to the words
and details around you.
Tips that can help DETAIL work in your writing:
● Show rather than tell
● Come to your senses
● Share “not-what-everybody-else-would-notice” details
● Support with layers of quotes, facts, and resources
● Select, summarize, expand and delete
● Use grammatical structures to embed detail
Chapter 4-Detail: Selecting the Concrete and Necessary
Ideas:
● T-chart: show rather than tell
● Sticky Questions (in teams of 3)
1. First writer reads aloud from their draft to the others, who listen.
2. Other writers in group listen and jot down 3 or more questions on a sticky note.
3. After first writer finishes reading, others share their questions (writer may or
may not discuss the answers).
4. Now the writer knows what questions readers have. (Switch roles)
5. Writers consider the questions as they revise.
Chapter 5: Form: Organizing and
Structuring Ideas (Donna)
“Form evolves, shapes, and helps writers structure and
organize their thinking. Structure is not stagnant or
formulaic. Form serves the writer’s purpose, not the other
way around. To use form effectively, we read and analyzereally taking apart texts we read, putting them back
together, and noting all that works and doesn’t. Only then
will our writing take form.” (pg 112)
Chapter 5-- Form: Organizing and Structuring
Ideas (Donna)
To introduce genre, do this● Students list titles of movies and tv shows in notebooks
● Groups combine their lists, writing titles on a sticky
notes
● Groups categorize the sticky notes in an open sort
● Groups discuss why these are grouped together
● Students make sticky note labels for all the categories
they formed
● Groups share with class and discuss
Chapter 6-- Frames: Exploring Introductions
and Conclusions (Donna)
“We make choices with our leads and
conclusions as well. We could slap something
on the beginning and end that would function
as a frame-or we could custom frame it. We
could craft a lead that reveals what is to come.
We could construct a conclusion that will linger
long after it’s read.”
Chapter 6: Frames: Exploring
Introductions and Conclusions (Donna)
How are the two paintings alike and different?
“Do the frames make the pictures look different?”
“The frame of your writing defines where it starts and where it stops. It
gives your writing a border.”
Chapter 7-- Cohesion: Unifying the Whole
(Carol )
Cohesion - the glue that makes writing stick together.
“Cohesive writing makes readers feel safe.”
Tips for Making Cohesion Work:
● Connect ideas with transitional words and phrases.
● Summarize with transitions.
● Unify sentences and paragraphs using the old-to-new pattern.
● Highlight your key message by cutting what doesn’t fit.
● Ensure pronouns have a clear antecedent.
● Repeat important words, phrases, images, and structures.
● Be consistent with tense, point of view, tone, and mood.
● Use punctuation and grammar intentionally to improve connections.
Chapter 7--Cohesion: Unifying the Whole
(Carol)
A few ideas:
● Punctuation and grammatical structures are the most basic ways writers
show cohesion in their writing. Teach mini-lessons on punctuation and
grammatical patterns.
● The Blind Leading the Blind--a lesson simulation on a pronoun-free world.
Select a piece of text and replace all the pronouns with their antecedent.
Give it to students to read; discuss; then pass out the text with pronouns
replaced. Ask students to highlight pronouns and then trace them back to
their antecedents. This way of checking vague pronoun reference is a
great revision tool.
Chapter 8-Energy: Creating Rhythm and Style ( Carol )
“Energy is the movement of our words, the cadence, the
rhythm, the music, the beat, the syntax, the electrocity.
Energy moves the reader through the text, creating mood
and bringing variety to the eye and ear.”
Tips for Making Energy Work:
● See writing as performance.
● Play with sentence patterns and length.
● Punctuate your style.
● Read a variety of texts with an eye (and ear) for energy.
● Make it personal.
● Read your writing aloud to find rhythm and fluency.
Chapter 8-- Energy: Creating Rhythm and
Style (Carol)
A few ideas:
● The Buzz Kill Five--Select a text and then drain all the energy out of it.
Pass out the drained version to students, ask them to read, discuss what is
wrong. Pass out the original text, read, and compare with drained version.
● How Hot Was it?--Share a passage from Sherman Alexie’s book. The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Read together with students
and then discuss what energizes the selection. Lead your students to
focus on the dialogue and its effect. Share The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
by Jacqueline Kelly. Read together with students and then discuss what is different about
the energy in this selection. Lead students to focus on the description throughout the selection.
Comparing and contrasting, hearing, and discussing various texts and approaches allow
students to write their stories with all ways writers can bring energy.
Chapter 9-Words: Crafting Precise Diction (Trish)
The power of diction
Be Careful of words like really and very
Let the verbs do some of the work
Show don’t tell
Use figurative language - Simile, Metaphor,
Hyperbole, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, and
Personification
Chapter 10-Clutter: Deleting the Extraneous (Trish)
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Chapter 10-Clutter: Deleting the Extraneous (Trish)
Delete unnecessary and repeated words
Rearrange sentence parts/chunks
Add connector words
Form new verb endings
Talk it out