Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product

by Gail E. Tompkins

Using a process approach to writing, this book focuses on teaching strategies that will help children in grades K-8 use the writing process to develop and improve their writing skills and their writing products. It examines all major types of writing through a practical presentation that includes a wealth of children's authentic writing samples which helps bring the writing process to life. Explains the components of the writing workshop and provides suggestions for use with all grade levels. Focuses on monitoring the process children use as they write and helps to assess children's written products. Presents five levels of support that teachers can provide for children as they write. Contains lists of children's literature. For teachers and administrators of Elementary School writing/language arts.

Genres: Professional Development, Teaching, Writing

456 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 1990

About the author

Gail E. Tompkins earned her master’s degree and then her doctorate in Reading/Language Arts from Virginia Tech. She began her teaching career at Miami University in Ohio, then transferred to the University of Oklahoma and finally taught at California State University in Fresno. Because of her work with preservice and practicing teachers she received numerous awards for her teaching including the Provost’s Award of Excellence in Teaching at Cal State, Fresno and was inducted into the California Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame. She has been writing college textbooks for over 30 years—all focused on anticipating the questions teachers might ask and providing information to make her text users the most effective teachers. Other titles she has written include Language Arts: Patterns of Practice, 9e; Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach, 6e; Literacy for the Early Grades: A Successful Start for PreK-4 Readers and Writers, 3e; Literacy in the Middle Grades, 2e; and, 50 Literacy Strategies, 4e.

Reviews

[Paula Boyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very effective textbook for teaching aspiring teachers both the process of writing and how to write the products. It is organized in two parts with lots of student work samples, lists of mentor texts, typical questions asked by teachers, and chapter summaries and takeaways. It can be read cover to cover to get a comprehensive overview of writing and writing instruction (my preference), or it can be used as a reference book to scan a specific chapter to learn about and try out instructional approaches for different genres. Gail Tompkins is an author of several literacy-related professional resources and textbooks, and she is very thorough about the topics she writes about. I am thinking about switching to this textbook when I teach my next Writing Methods course.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the *7th ed.* (which I don't see listed on Goodreads) for a graduate course. It's an excellent reference book, even for middle school teachers. My copy is already tagged & written all over. Highly recommend!

[Ivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be a great reference to have in my toolbox. It was easy to plow through. It has good mentor texts for every genre.

[Mike]

Written for k-8, but as a high school Spanish teacher I am finding plenty of reasonable suggestions that could improve how I teach writing from level 1. I need to take more notes or these ideas are going to evaporate before next school year...

[NICOLE · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text outlines the six traits of writing. The text focuses on differentiating instruction for students. There is also insight in the text on how to implement technology and when you have English Language Learners in your classroom.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

really appreciated how this clearly outlined process writing and what writing workshops can look like in the classroom, and i loved all of the ideas for different kinds of projects and activities in the different modes of writing. will be referring back to this one for sure!

[Mea Magaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource for the Elementary Teacher. Each chapter notes a list of wonderful "mentor text" to use in your writing lessons. I definitely will keep this handy for writing lessons!

[Guisela · Rating 3 out of 5]

:)