If You're Trying to Teach Kids How to Write, You'Ve Gotta Have This Book

by Marjorie Frank

The handbook at the top of every required resource list--a how-to book for understanding and working with the whole writing process, an at-your-fingertips source of ideas for starting specific activities, and a ready-when-you're-in-need manual for solving writing problems.

Genres: Writing, Education, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Marjorie Slavick Frank

Reviews

[Kathrynn]

I found absolutely nothing useful in this book. The pages look as if they have been copied too many times and are smudged. There aren't clear guidelines to follow; a lot of lists, penciled-in graphics. I found this book horribly organized and a waste of money.

[Mandi]

If children can think they can write - the writing teachers job is to help them get those thoughts on to paper. Inspired writing comes from inspired writers and this book is full of ideas for "romancing" your students to inspiration!

[Rob]

A must have for any Language Arts/English teacher

[Linda]

Very good how-to write book for elementary and middle school. Full of great ideas and examples.

[Paula Boyce]

Great professional resource for teachers of younger students, but I did some good ideas and activities I will use with my middle schoolers.

[Amy]

This is between 3 and 4 stars; I give it 4 because I think it's worth owning and referencing often. It's a great resource for encouraging writing in children, and includes hundreds of different writing prompts, mixed in with encouraging essays on how to encourage creative writing. The book is creatively written and illustrated, and includes a number of poems and other writings on creativity.

If you are already a creative writer and have a good grip on it, then this would be an excellent book to give you more ideas to teach creative writing to children. For anyone who is not a creative writer, but is trying to teach children, I'm afraid some of these ideas might be next to impossible to implement without a lot of practice on your own part.

If you can find a copy of this book, it's worth having in an educator's library for the myriad of ideas. Her 9-step process of creating is possibly the best part of the entire thing, and it only takes up 3 pages.

[Casey]

This had a lot of great ideas. I really liked her voice--she was talking to teachers, as a teacher, and spoke with humor and empathy. I especially enjoyed the ideas at the beginning of the book. One of her major beliefs is that writing must take place on a strong foundation made of words. She included lots of activities to expose kids to language.

With district writing assessments and and state exams, I always feel pressure to teach structures. When I'm not concentrating on essay-type writing, I try to fit in some fiction (tall tales, origin stories...). Frank reminded me that there are plenty of other types of writing between essays and fiction.

[Ami]

Despite it's cartoonish illustrations (which for some reason annoy me) this book was incredibly helpful in creating lesson plans and ideas for writing with my children. I believe most of the ideas and suggestions in this book would help the individual family or an entire classroom of children. They could also be used from the earliest writers up until high school. This would be a worthwhile reference book to keep on hand.

[Kate]

incredibly difficult to actually sit down and read, but there are a handful of great writing prompts and ideas to take a more action-based approach to creativity.

[Andrea]

This is a useful book for those who are trying to inspire children how to write. I am selling my copy for $15.