Teaching Students to Write Personal Narratives

These books will support teachers in their understanding of designing process-based instruction and give them both useful lesson plans and a process for designing instruction on their own that follows the design principles.

-Peter Smagorinsky, Larry Johannessen, Elizabeth Kahn, and Thomas McCann

The Dynamics of Writing Instruction series helps middle and high school teachers teach writing using a structured process approach. Teachers may spread these books throughout a multiyear English language arts program, use all six books to constitute a yearlong writing course, or repeat modified sequences from one book at sequential grade levels so students deal with that particular genre at increasing degrees of complexity.

Each book in the series includes classroom-tested activities, detailed lesson sequences, and supporting handouts. The instruction is detailed enough to use as a daily plan but general enough that teachers can modify it to accommodate their own curriculum and the specific needs of their students.

The instructional activities in each book are tailored to a specific kind of writing: argument, essays that define, comparison/contrast essays, personal narratives, research reports, and fictional narratives. This six book series will show teachers how to:

introduce issues, dilemmas, and scenarios that capture students' interest and invoke the critical and creative thinking necessary to write powerfully and effectively design and orchestrate activities within an interactive and collaborative environment move students through increasingly challenging activities designed to help them become independent writers.