A process writing project in a third-grade classroom explored the idea of using nonfiction mentor texts to assist students in writing their own creative informational texts about animals. By looking at author craft and structure during close reading activities with nonfiction Twin Texts, students were taught how to emulate these techniques in…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) lays out "a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century." Among educators, conversations about reading and writing have shifted to reflect the CCSS emphasis on informational, technical, opinion, and other non-narrative forms. Yet, these standards also demand that…

The present study represented an effort to improve on the outcomes of the Puma (2006) study by creating a writing process program that provided students with compelling video models of effective writing practices in small writing teams. In this method, called Writing Wings with Media (WWM), students worked in 4-member, heterogeneous writing groups…

While interactive writing has typically been utilized and researched in the primary grades, little has been written about its use with older students. The author briefly describes the historic use of interactive writing, along with appropriate research, then goes on to describe its use in her third-grade classroom as a tool to teach writer's craft…