Brilliant Resources for Teaching Writing: Complete Collection

Would you like to know how to teach writing more effectively? Would you like to be a better writing teacher? If you download and read the free teaching-writing resources found on this page, you will definitely be the best writing teacher at your school! Of course, I’m assuming that you take action with these materials and teach writing.

Taking Charge of Teaching Writing

Students write every time they pick up their pencils, so teachers need to take charge of teaching writing. The following free teaching-writing resources will help you do that.

Even with Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay, I encourage teachers to take charge and to use the program as a tool to improve their students’ writing FAST. Furthermore, I encourage all Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay users to explore these free teaching-writing resources so that they can build on their students’ amazing new writing success.

The Teaching-Writing Puzzle

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a foundation and framework for teaching writing. It’s the missing piece of the puzzle that makes everything else teachers do work. The resources that follow will help teachers complete the teaching-writing puzzle. To be clear, teaching writing is more than teaching a compendium of rules and skills.

Decades of research make one fact crystal clear: Grammar instruction and isolated skill drills don’t improve the quality of student writing. I mention this because teachers often search for the short-term worksheet curriculum instead of trying to understand how to teach writing. To improve your students’ writing, you can’t just turn pages. Writing is too complex for that. Furthermore, students write every single time they pick up a pencil. That’s the important kind of writing.

A Note on Checklists *

Most of these resources focus on helping teachers use systems and routines to teach writing, and these systems and routines require that teachers take action. For this reason, many of my free eBooks contain a checklist. Checklists are short and concrete reminders to take action. Furthermore, if you understand the checklist, you understand the concepts. I’ve marked the eBooks that have a checklist with an asterisk.*

If you need to get results teaching writing, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage! It’s the fastest, most effective way to teach students organized multi-paragraph essay writing… Guaranteed!

First, Take the Timed Writing System Challenge

How do you know if you are getting results teaching writing? How do your students know if their writing is improving? As you download and spend time with these amazing teaching-writing resources, you are committing to improving your students’ writing. This Timed Writing System is an incredible apples-to-apples comparison and evaluation system for both teachers and students. Whether you are getting results or not getting results, both you and your students need to know the truth. If you are not getting results, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage!

Section 1: My Free Teaching-Writing eBooks

1. The Definitive List of Writing and Grammar Skills

This eBook is an endless list of writing and grammar skills and concepts. It outlines the entire world of writing and grammar, while also making the point that we don’t teach writing by teaching an endless list of rules and skills. This is basically a huge checklist. *

2. The Ten Stages of Paragraph and Multi-Paragraph Mastery

If you examine how your students create paragraphs, you will find that every single one of them creates paragraphs in line with one of these Ten Stages of Paragraph and Multi-Paragraph Mastery. Furthermore, this eBook explores many of the topics that teachers and theorists debate about how we teach writing. *

3. Nine Strategies for Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum

I developed Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay by teaching writing across the curriculum. I have always used grammar and skill-specific lessons because I need them and because they are often part of a required curriculum, but I use them quickly so that my students have time to write across the curriculum. If my students are writing across the curriculum, I am thinking about how I can teach them something about writing as they write. This eBook covers nine systems, routines, and mindsets that I use to teach writing across the curriculum. *

4. How to Use the Six Traits of Writing and the Common Core Traits to Teach Writing Across the Curriculum

We have all heard of the Six Traits of Writing. But have you heard of the Common Core Traits of Writing? Although the Six Traits are still highly relevant, the Common Core has added to and changed the traits of writing. In this eBook, I explain all of this and more. I discuss how to teach any trait that you think is important as you teach writing across the curriculum. Of course, I also link to many of the best and most authoritative Six-Trait rubrics. *

5. Multi-Purpose Journal and Learning Log: Ten Types of Writing

Has your class ever begun writing in a journal or learning log with great excitement and high expectations only to quit? If so, this eBook is a must-read. This type of writing mostly falls into the category of “low-stakes” writing. Although the research makes clear that low-stakes writing is a valuable component of writing instruction, teachers do need to use their time wisely and with purpose. In short, this “Multi-Purpose Journal and Learning Log” will help teachers provide their students with additional valuable writing opportunities. *

6. Beginner’s Guide to Teaching Writing

This eBook provides a solid, fast-paced overview of what teaching writing is. This eBook is for teachers who are lost in theory or tired of turning pages in curriculums that don’t improve their students’ independent writing. This eBook helps teachers understand why they need to forget all that and take charge of teaching writing.

7. Ten Types of Writing Prompts and Various Genres on State and District Writing Assessments

In this free eBook, I analyze and explain ten types of writing prompts from actual state writing assessments. To be clear, many writing prompts are more complex than they appear on the surface. While some combine Format Genres and the Four Main Genres to create unique genres, others use standard terms in non-standard or ambiguous ways. This intentionally complex nature of writing prompts is why some prompt-analysis strategies actually backfire and send students down blind alleys. Don’t let that happen to your students! Read this eBook!

8. How to Create Scaffolded, Student-Owned Writing Assignments with Your Students to Teach Writing Across the Curriculum

I suggest that teachers read Nine Strategies for Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum before they read this. This eBook is for teachers who are seriously committed to teaching writing across the curriculum and who also want to become skilled at creating student-ownership of writing. In short, teachers learn how to stop having their students write about things that aren’t aligned with their goals across the curriculum.

9. How to Grade Writing and Classroom Work FAST and FAIRLY Across the Curriculum Using the Pile Method

Teachers need to hold their students accountable for using proper writing skills in their daily writing across the curriculum. If they don’t, their students won’t do their best writing. Although I use many different systems to achieve this goal, assigning grades is certainly one of them.

Students need grades to concretely tell them how they are doing. After moving to a higher grade, I once had a student tell me, “This grade lets me know that I need to work harder.” I realized that I had not been assigning enough grades for this age group. This “Pile Method for Grading Writing and Classroom Work” helps teachers assign all of the grades that they need to fast and fairly. And yes, this Pile Method also works in the content areas across the curriculum.

10. How to Use Rubrics, Checklists, and Assessment Sheets (RCAs) to Teach Writing Across the Curriculum (TWAC)

Ideally, teaching writing is in the moment and across the curriculum. How can one rubric and one checklist reflect everything that we need to teach our students in various genres across the curriculum? This eBook puts teachers in charge of rubrics, checklists, and holding students accountable across the curriculum.

 

Section 2: Links to More Teaching-Writing Resources

Over the years, I have come across a variety of valuable resources that help teachers complete the how-to-teach-writing puzzle. About half of these links lead to a page on my blog where I link to the resources; the rest link directly to resources on an external website.

A Note on Broken External Links: Although I do update the links regularly, occasionally, you will come across a broken link from an external website. Put simply, people move their resources around or delete them completely. If the resource has simply been moved, you should be able to do a quick Google search and find it.

1. Evidence-Based Writing Practices for Writing Instruction (2014) by Gary Troia

This is an excellent summation of all the research on teaching writing so far, and I’ve placed it in checklist form. On the one hand, you will say, “This is excellent,” on the other hand, you will say, “Does all of this research really help me get results teaching writing? Isn’t most of this common sense and common wisdom?” Such is the nature of “the research says.” Of course, if you look at the checklist and find that you are not doing anything on the checklist—that’s a problem. *

2. Common Core Writing Standards in Checklist and Table Form: Grades K-12

A checklist makes things simple. Either you can add a checkmark or you can’t. I’ve created many different versions of the Common Core Writing Standards to place them in a usable form. Once again, if you look at the checklist and are not achieving anything on the checklist—that’s a problem. *

3. FreeMind Mind Mapping Software

FreeMind is an open-source mind-mapping software that teachers can use to create webs and hierarchies of ideas that are often a part of the prewriting process. You can Google “Freemind” or use the link. You want to end up on the Sourceforge.net page. This software is free and open-source. Open source means the code is available for everyone to see, use, and contribute to (kind of like Wikipedia). I tend to trust most popular open-source software, as everyone can see the code. However, install software at your own risk! Be sure to have an anti-virus software scan your download before you install it. You may also want to do a Google search for “free mind mapping software.”

4. Student Writing Samples and Analysis for Elementary, Middle School, and High School: Two Complete Collections

Teachers must bring objectivity to teaching writing, and these two collections of student writing samples help teachers achieve that goal. Both collections of writing samples are from on-demand writing assignments. One collection is a Common-Core writing collection (grades K-12), and the other is from an Oregon State Writing Assessment (grades 3-10).

The Common-Core writing collection is helpful because… well, it’s Common Core related. The Oregon collection is excellent because it’s clear-cut, unvarnished on-demand writing. This is true independent student writing. This collection shows what the best writers and the struggling writers do when left to their own devices. Both collections contain plenty of analysis and scoring commentary for every single piece of student writing.

5. State-Writing-Assessment Tools and Resources

This page contains links to valuable resources from seventeen different state writing assessments. You will find all of these: 1) released writing prompts, 2) scoring rubrics, 3) anchor papers, scoring commentary, student writing samples, 4) teacher guides and/or test directions, 5) and more! Unfortunately, these resources move around quite a bit, so many of the links may be broken. But if you are looking for writing assessment resources, it’s still a great place to begin.

6. Released Writing Prompts for State Testing

Here is an awesome collection of 114-pages of released writing prompts from state writing assessments. Practicing with authentic released writing prompts is one of the best ways to prepare students for a writing assessment. Teachers have three ways to practice with these prompts: 1) analyze and dissect the prompts, 2) create prewriting, and 3) write to the prompt. The reality is that students don’t need to write to the prompt to familiarize themselves with the prompts and develop skills with them. I encourage all Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay users to use these prompts at least occasionally so that they achieve multiple goals at once.

7. Six-Trait Rubrics

In all of these downloads, you will find a Six-Trait rubric. These are all from authoritative Six-Trait sources, so they are all close to the original intent and structure of the Six Traits. You may find other Six-Trait rubrics that you like better, but it’s also nice to have an original.

A. An Investigation of the Impact of the 6+1 Trait Writing Model on Grade 5 Student Writing Achievement Final Report (2011) Appendix E. Scoring rubrics for student essays. This appendix describes the two types of study rubrics applied by the scoring teams: the holistic rubric and the six analytic rubrics. ERIC Number: ED527445

B. Traits Rubric for Grades 3–12 (2014) – Education Northwest

C. Traits Rubric for Grades 3–12 (2013) – Education Northwest

D. Dear Parent: A Handbook for Parents of 6-Trait Writing Students (1997) by Vicki Spandel: This is an excellent “Student Friendly Scoring Guide.” Even though the scan is not the best quality, the handbook as a whole provides a friendly overview of 6-Trait writing.