Creating Confident Writers: For High School, College, and Life

by Troy Hicks, Andy Schoenborn

Writing should be for an audience other than a teacher, and for a purpose beyond getting a grade. Connecting their classroom experience to research about writing, as well as to framing documents in the field, two seasoned writing teachers distill the lessons they’ve learned about creating confident adolescent and young adult writers. Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn outline a fundamental stance to their approach―to invite, encourage, and celebrate students’ writing―that is then echoed in the book’s three-part structure. There are numerous classroom activities and assignments on topics from creating writing goals to supporting revision, examples of student work, and questions to guide teachers’ reflections. In this book for any teacher of writing, from middle school through college, readers are invited to try strategies and allow students’ voices to emerge, while discussing with colleagues how these approaches might work for them, too. 10 black-and-white images

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 2, 2020

Reviews

[Gary Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

By honoring the writer within each student, Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn nurture the identity of a writer primarily through providing choices that strengthen her decision-making skills, independence, and confidence.  Invite/Encourage/Celebrate is the authors’ framework for developing confidence, and each chapter of Creating Confident Writers (W. W. Norton and Company, 2020) provides examples, methods, strategies, and rationales for every phase of this process. Especially useful are the explanations of the many digital platforms and apps Hicks and Schoenborn use with students to accomplish writing, reading, and thinking goals.

I was interested in how the philosophical underpinnings of using independent reading time in class were also used for independent creative writing in class. Although the focus in Creating Confident Writers is writing, the authors neatly and enthusiastically integrate reading and writing. This is a welcome discussion because such integration is necessary in most high school English cases, but the two literacy threads are often overly compartmentalized.

Creating Confident Writers makes clear that the best writing teachers are teacher writers. Because the text formats that students see most often are polished finished products, they tend to harbor the illusion that writing springs into being with clarity, focus, and charm. As teacher writers share their writing goals, struggles, and successes, students learn that the work of writers involves heuristic exploration, drafting, and revising before a final version is ready for public consumption. I like Andy Schoenborn’s explanation of how he frequently uses the phrase “As a writer” to frame questions to students, as in “As a writer, what jumps out to you about this piece?” (92).

I was at first a little put off by the ubiquitous sidebar “Boxes” that explain how various descriptions in the chapters relate to foundational documents from the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Writing Project. The document language is more formal and less engaging than the voices of Hicks and Schoenborn, but I soon realized that these Boxes can be valuable for teachers who are required, asked, or feel the need to justify pedagogical practices inspired by this book.

My only quibble—and it’s a small one—is an editorial matter. Many extension examples and activities are available on a companion web site, an excellent additional support for readers. The book frequently refers to this web site, which is fine, but variations of the phrase “available on the authors’ website” appear with such regularity that it became a distraction to me. A symbol in the margins showing points where the text is enhanced by the website would be preferable to repeatedly referencing the website in the paragraphs.

The book’s subtitle is For High School, College, & Life. The approaches described are exactly the kinds of practices that will lead high school and college students to become lifelong writers with the experience, knowledge, and confidence to use high-level literacy skills as they view, navigate, and understand their worlds. With Creating Confident Writers, Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn have given high school and college English teachers an important, lively, worthwhile resource to savor individually or to discuss with colleagues.

This review originally appeared on my What's Not Wrong? blog in slightly different form.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent blend of the WHAT (based in the two authors’ classroom experience) and the WHY (rhetorical and learning theory) behind Writing Workshop and its elements. Friendly and inspirational in tone and encyclopedic in its coverage of this complex terrain. A great, great book for teacher babies!

[Adam Sadler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers is a thoughtful and practical guide for creating a writing culture in a secondary education classroom. The book provides a perfect balance of theoretical knowledge with real classroom examples, providing a handful of curated example activities at the end of each chapter that are both inspiring and actionable. His focus on developing student confidence is an important reminder for myself as I am about to be a student teacher next semester, and can fall into a habit of focusing on mechanics and assigning one too many literary essays. This book reminds the reader what it might have been like to be an inexperienced writer in a classroom without the confidence necessary to share our work.
CCW is an excellent resource for any prospective or current educator that feels they are lacking ideas for teaching writing. I expect to look at the example lessons every now and then to help design lessons while I am in the field.
-Adam S.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently an aspiring educator. In my college course, we read Creating Confident Writers by Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn. This book offered a range of strategies to engage and inspire my future students’ writing within my classroom. CCW is a guide for educators. Step by step, we learn the methods of properly conveying to our students to see the purpose of writing beyond simply getting a grade. Something that made reading more compelling is that Troy and Andy’s pedagogy aligns with my own teaching philosophy. Another aspect that I find refreshing about this book is that it offers multimodal dimensions to approaching writing in a creative and fun way. By doing this, educators can appeal to students who are more in tune with the digital world.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers is a great text that I would recommend to anyone who is going into education or that is already an educator. I have read this book as someone who is going into Secondary Education and there are so many different ideas that I can take with me into my future classroom. I enjoyed the different writing activities that were shown throughout the chapters in the book. This is a great resource that can benefit your classroom.

-Alyssa B

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a future high school ELA teacher, I connected deeply with Creating Confident Writers by Troy Hicks and Dr. Andy Schoenborn. From the very beginning, the authors emphasize that teaching writing is about more than correcting essays or teaching structure—its about helping students find their voice and feel proud of what they create. Their stories and classroom examples reminded me that writing grows out of trust, encouragement, and meaningful purpose. I really appreciated how Hicks and Schoenborn show that confidence doesn’t happen overnight—its built through small moments of success, reflection, and choice. Their focus on digital tools, mentor texts and authentic writing opportunities inspired me to think about how I can make writing more relevant and empowering for my future students.

This book reaffirmed why I want to teach—to build strong relationships with my students and help them become the best versions of themselves and certainly as writers. Hicks and Schoenborn highlight how connection and confidence go hand in hand: when students know their teacher believes in them, they begin to believe in themselves. I want my classroom to be a space where students feel safe to take risks, explore their ideas and share their stories. Creating Confident Writers gave me practical strategies and, more importantly, a renewed sense of purpose as an educator. It reminded me that teaching isn’t just about words on a page—it’s about helping young people discover who they are and what they have to say.

[Layla W]

As a writer and aspiring teacher, I have found that Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn's Creative Confident Writers has provided me with the tools and insights I will need during my journey to become an English teacher. Creative Confident Writer has transformed my view of writing and has helped me discover how much of an art it is to write and to teach writing.

To start with, this book has provided me with so many new ideas and ways that I can use to invite writers to share and develop their writing, and all the writing activities shared in this book aim to “shine a light on the value their words bring to the world” (Hicks and Schoenborn 4). Additionally, this book also offered me useful suggestions and observations on teaching writing and the experiences that have resulted from it. This has given me, as an aspiring teacher, the insights, knowledge, and confidence I need to teach writing myself, as it has made me feel more prepared to do so.

This book also taught me about mentor texts and how writing may take different forms: blogging, typing, and so on. This information on digital mentors has greatly broadened my perspective on writing and given me some fantastic ideas, with one of my favorite activities from this section being #BookSnaps (Hicks and Schoenborn 75). Activities like these offered by Hicks and Schoenborn help us teach writing in such unique and immersive ways that it becomes a joy to write and helps us as teachers see how we can make our writing instruction more experiential.

All in all, this is definitely my favorite read of the year, and it has not only given me insights, tips, and activities I can use in my future classrooms, but it has also reignited my love for writing and inspired me to teach and view writing in a new way. If there is one book that I would recommend all English teachers read before teaching writing, it is Creating Confident Writers!

[Riley Mason-Schickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers is a great introduction text to get future ELA teachers thinking about how they can teach writing to their students. A central focus in this book involves giving students the opportunity to claim and grow their own writer identity. It is through your invitation, encouragement, and celebration of this writer identity that Hicks and Schoenborn argue helps students become confident writers. Amid this theoretical teaching, Hicks and Schoenborn provide examples from their own classrooms. At the end of every chapter, they include open-ended writing activities that you can use in your own ELA classroom and provide you with student-produced examples. Additionally, Hicks and Schoenborn offer many resources that will be useful to an ELA teacher who is just entering the field from professional ELA teacher organizations to places to share their own writing! While these examples and ideas are great in theory, some readers (and future teachers) may wonder how to apply these practices to their own classroom. This lack of a concrete curriculum plan is the downside of this book. That being said, Creating Confident Writers is not a book in which to gain curriculum ideas. It is a book for teachers to learn how to help their students become confident and proficient writers and perhaps even how to become confident writers themselves. Overall, Creating Confident Writers is a great resource for any ELA teacher, and I would recommend it to any ELA teacher who is preparing to enter the field!

[Jacob Bowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I believe this book offers many great frameworks and key pedagogical ideas revolving around literacy, the links between reading and writing, etc., to be able to foster our students' identities in the literary world. However, while the prevalence of technology is to be acknowledged, I believe many of the examples and focus around structuring around very particular digital formats came somewhat at the expense of potential more "traditional" examples or structures. Additionally, while at the time of writing platforms such as Twitter may have previously been more pliable to some of the proposed activities, those online spaces have certainly aged like milk in the past couple of years to put it bluntly.
As an up-incoming Secondary English teacher, many of the core pedagogical ideas have reaffirmed my own lived experiences throughout my middle and high-school career, and have proven highly insightful into my future plans. However, in today's day and age the environments and dynamics that Generative AI tools and LLMs have created and changed in regards to digital tools and writing has made the overarching focus on blogs and other similar digital formats that this book heavily involves itself with may not be as effective or recommendable, however many of those frameworks, activities, etc., can be adapted into other formats, hence why this book is still very useful and insightful.

[Radiance Magnesium · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an aspiring ELA educator, I read this book as part of the curriculum for one of my college courses. I found that the methods in CCW pushed the preconceived ideas about teaching writing that many of us have, whether we realized them or not.

One thing CCW emphasized about teaching writing that I hadn't necessarily thought about before is our identities as a writer and giving our students the identity of a writer, too. There's a sort of power in taking ownership of that title and that identity. That power helps to literally "create confident writers" and not just be the educators who "assign useless essays".

The one issue I encountered with CCW is the way that these tactics seem geared towards creative writing and giving your students the agency to choose what they are writing about. Because I am only an aspiring educator, I haven't had much in-classroom experience yet and can only compare to what I've witnessed in my observations and my schooling. In my experience, the curriculum being pushed in 8-12 ELA classrooms leans towards argumentative and research writing, not narrative or poetry. I think the methods in CCW can potentially translate into any genre of writing but not as easily as when students have more freedom of choice for what they feel driven to write about.

Overall, I think this book is eye-opening for aspiring (or current) educators and is full of useful techniques for teaching writing.

--- R. Persinger

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers by Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenbern is an insightful read for every future educator. As a future teacher, I learned ways to branch out with different methodologies for writing while also challenging my students simultaneously. The main takeaway from this book is that we can not instill confidence within our students if we do not allow them to engage actively with their writing and peers. They must actively be challenged to write in new ways that stem new forms of creativity and connections to who they are as students and individuals. Within each chapter, several activities show different writing methods on specific topics but with a creative twist. The activities inspired me to write some of my best works of poetry that I didn't even know I could. Specifically, activity 1.2: Trending topics. I absolutely loved how this activity was constructed and can ensure I use it with my future students. Regarding strengths, I would say this book is open-minded to the different class situations and how to alter the activities based on your class. It doesn't enforce one approach but offers insight into multiple ways to teach on the same topic. Regarding weaknesses, I would say that the lessons are very short and would be moreso a mini-lesson for an entire 50-minute class period. Overall, this is a great read and has helped change my perspective as a current student and future educator.

[McKenzie H · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a future educator with a focus on ELA this book is 100% meant for you. Authors Hicks and Schoenborn share insight into the best practices of how to teach writing to Secondary Education level students. Each chapter focuses on how any person who is willing can become a better teacher of writing. They give examples from teachers who've had success in the classroom and even failures. Each chapter is focused on different topics of learning in the writing classroom. At the end of every chapter, they include activities that you can do with your class someday. These activities focus on the content that was just taught in the chapter. Being in college, I can say this book was the most helpful, encouraging thing I've ever read for teaching. It helps you understand how you can engage with your students. There's a lot of focus on the NCTE principles and how each lesson/activity fits into those principles. I learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend this book to any teacher who teaches reading or writing. It's a book I'm going to keep close to me throughout my journey in education. If you use this book in your classroom, you're going to be a very effective teacher. 10/10 recommend.

[Hailey Petrovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers by Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn is definitely worth the read for current and aspiring English teachers. This book has a heavy focus on the ‘why’ behind teaching; why we read, why we write, and why we set goals for ourselves. I think it is important to first recognize our ‘why’ as teachers so that we can explain our reasons to our students. Students can tell whether a teacher is being genuine, or simply wants them to complete work to get their job done. Transparency goes a long way with students, and Creating Confident Writers does a fantastic job instilling confidence into teachers that can be passed along to their students.
After reading, there is a much clearer sense of why it is important to explain the significance of our writing activities to students. Knowing that their work is valuable makes a huge difference when it comes to students’ confidence as writers. As a future educator myself, my goal is not only to teach students the basic mechanics of writing, but to have them leave my classroom feeling more confident in themselves than they came. As I enter my student teaching and teaching career, this book will definitely be one that I keep handy when I need a confidence boost.

[Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Creating Confident Writers: For High School, College, and Life
By Preston B.

Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn’s Creating Confident Writers is both a practical guide and an inspiring call to action for teachers who want their students to see themselves as capable, authentic writers. The book is grounded in research yet deeply classroom‑tested, offering strategies that honor student voice, choice, and purpose.

What I found most powerful is the authors’ insistence that writing should always be for an audience beyond the teacher and for a purpose beyond a grade. This shift reframes writing as communication rather than compliance, and it resonates with students who crave authenticity.

Each chapter blends philosophy with practice, offering ready‑to‑use strategies, reflection prompts, and online resources. Hicks and Schoenborn also remind us that confident writers need confident teachers, encouraging us to model vulnerability, curiosity, and growth alongside our students.

For any educator looking to move beyond stereotypical instruction and toward authentic, purposeful writing, Creating Confident Writers is a great resource. It’s not just about improving essays. It’s about cultivating writers who will carry confidence into college, careers, and life.

[Erica Bergmooser · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the friendly way this book is written, to the muti-modal activities that challenge the mind of every writer, I can confidently say that my creative lense has been transformed since finishing Creating Confident Writers.

As someone who is a year away from completing a Bachelors in Secondary Education, my goal as a future high school English teacher is to give my students activities that not only challenge them to think outside the mainstream way of thinking, but I want to provide them with engaging activities that actively let them practice their skill building. The baseline that teachers need to create space in the classroom for students to practice writing and text exploration allows students to enhance their perception of literary identities and the experiences that shape it. This book touches on all of that and more! With ideas for intentional goal planning, mentor texts, multimodal reading responses and ways we can not only revise and give feedback but celebrate the growth that stems from that, this resource is essential for the bookshelves of teachers that truly want to create confident writers.

[Chad Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers is an essential read to any aspiring teacher or writer. Creating Confident writers provides an unorthodox process into writing instruction based upon empowering writers to express their true voice. As a future English teacher, the lens of writing instruction Troy Hicks and Andy Shoenborn provide in this book is so refreshing, especially when compared to the mundane writing so prevalent in curriculum today and in the past. Outside the realm of the classroom, this class also provides great insight to any aspiring writer, this is explicitly shown in the writing activities outlined at the end of each chapter. I did several of them on my own, and they were all challenging, yet fruitful experiences. This book does have a hyper focus on digital writing, if that is not your cup of tea, some of the writing exercises will not be as enjoyable for you. With that being said, most of the exercises outlined in here can be done in the digital world or simply with pen and paper.

[Fatimah Alkhafahji · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read Creating Confident Writers for my ENGL408W class, and as someone working toward becoming a high school English teacher, I found it really helpful. The book isn’t just about rules and grammar,  it’s all about helping students feel confident and find their own voice in writing.  What I really liked is how practical it is. It gives concrete strategies for teaching students how to set goals, reflect on their work, give and receive feedback, and revise in a meaningful way. Even though the examples are aimed at older students, the ideas can be adapted for almost any classroom. It made me realize that teaching writing isn’t just about correcting mistakes, it’s about helping students grow, express themselves, and actually enjoy writing. Overall, the book was really useful for my class and for my future career. It gave me ideas I can actually use in the classroom to help students become confident writers, not just students who write for a grade. I’ll definitely be keeping this one in my teaching toolkit.
Fatimah A

[Jack F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would highly recommend Creating Confident Writers to any ELA educator, or to students looking to improve their writing. Hicks and Schoenborn have created a book full of thoughtful and practical ideas that will help students better understand the writing process. While this book is helpful for explaining many of the more traditional aspects of writing, such as grammar, it excels at helping students to understand writing as an artform. While students are often shown examples of great writing and expected to emulate it, CCW can help educators show students “behind the curtain” so to speak, and better understand the journey to becoming a good writer. This book is especially excellent for educators, because it is full of unique and current writing activities that can be used in the classroom. I cannot recommend Hicks' and Schoenborn's work highly enough.

[Hailey M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for a class I am taking to get my Masters in Secondary English Education and this may be one of my favorite assigned books out of my entire college career. The great thing about this book is that it does not read like a textbook where you think to yourself "what did I just read?" It is candid and casual and its honest. I like how this book is written specifically for teachers, as a future teacher I definitely see myself keeping this close to use as a reference when I need advice. This book uses real life examples and also provides dozens of examples of activities for students. Overall this book is helpful, interesting and a great reference point. I would definitely recommend this book to any current or future English teachers!

[Hannah Spohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Best Case Scenario

As an aspiring educator, reading books about teaching ELA is a very nerve wracking concept. However this book being the first one I have ever read was the best case scenario. This book is not dry or unhelpful, but actually was an interesting read and kept me thinking about how I could apply this knowledge to my future career in education. Schoenborn and Hicks do an amazing job of describing real classroom examples of what teaching writing should and could look like. I am very excited to one day be able to practice the teachings of this text in my classroom.

[Sara C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a college education class, and it posed a lot of great ideas about how to effectively teach writing in the classroom. The activities in this book emphasized giving students control and ownership over their own learning process. I learned a lot from this book. Each chapter contains a variety of writing activities to try in the classroom. Overall, this book provides a lot of inspiration for teachers who want to get their students engaged and excited about writing. However, I wonder if it is plausible to incorporate a lot of these activities into the classroom while still leaving time for curriculum, and expectations of the district.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I throughly enjoyed Creating Confident Writers. I am a college student studying how to become a teacher and I found this book to be very helpful when thinking of technique and activities to get my future students into writing and confident about their work they produce. The chapters are well broken down into the process that writers find themselves in during the journey of writing, the activities are well thought out and suitable for most grades and the text is very engaging and makes you think as a future teacher how you can improve before stepping into a classroom. I enjoyed studying this text and found it very beneficial to read.

[Abigail Nation · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a future ELA teacher, who is doing my student teaching in January 2026, I found that this book was very helpful in helping my identify ways to incorporate and become invested in writing instruction. I really appreciated the activities that these authors include at the end of each chapter. It provided me with real and proven activities that I can one day included in my own classroom. Though, I do believe that these activities are great examples and can be incorporated into any classroom, I wish there was more of a focus on first-year teachers and incorporating the activities and concepts in the book into a curriculum we may not experience with.

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This piece was a real eye-opener. I am a fourth-year college student who had to read this for a class, and for the first time, I didn't feel lost while reading. This piece is written for individuals who want to improve their teaching skills; it is clear in its message while also providing tools and effective teaching strategies. I have found that many teaching textbooks dance around what they want you to know, but CCW makes understanding what you are reading and comprehending it very easy. I deafeningly recommend reading this if you are looking for knowledgeable and useful information in regards to teaching writing at the secondary level!

[Maisy Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating Confident Writers is a wonderful professional text that I will carry with me throughout my teaching career. I commend their insights on digital literacy and promoting student growth through multimedia literacy and educating them using their own reflections and experiences. I recommended that every pre-service teacher and current teacher look into reading this book as it will help you develop your own ideas about what your English classroom should look like for yourself and for your students.

[Patrick A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone has the capacity to write. If you were to take one thing from this book that is what I would focus on the most. We all might not think we are writers but we are, we write every day whether that be via text, email, or journaling, we ALL write. As an aspiring future teacher, I have taken countless ideas from this book. Troy Hicks and Andy Schoenborn have also encouraged me to celebrate my student's writing and opened my eyes to push my students to become the best writers they can be. I highly encourage anyone to pick up this book and elevate their writing to the next level.

[Kaylee H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. I am studying to become a teacher and this book has given me a lot of ideas I can use in my future classroom. I will continue to use this book as I move forward in my studying. Reading this book has opened my eyes to ideas I never knew existed before I read this. I highly recommend reading this book if you are planning on becoming a teacher or are a current teacher in the ELA field.

[Morgan May · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided me with lots of knowledge on how to teach writing in my future high school English classes. There's so many great ideas for engaging activities that can help students learn to progress their writing skills. I learned different strategies on how to really make the students more excited/enjoy creating their own writing. This is a great book for teachers and I definitely. I will absolutely use this in my future career!

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

G. F.

Navigating the process of teaching writing is a very big task for future and current educators, making Creating Confident Writers an important and beneficial read. Not only was this book straightforward to read and follow, but it also offered unique perspectives and insight in an engaging way! As a future educator and current college student, I plan to use information from this book and revisit it often.

[Wendie Barney Boucher · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were so many useful tips and ideas that I found in this book. I also attended a webinar recently with the author on working with students on writing through distance learning. He is a wonderful resource to obtain great ideas from for not only writing but the many ways you can help your students be successful no matter the school setting.