Drawing and writing in response to picturebook read-alouds, elementary children construct varying "visual hooks" in their sketches as effective visual devices for extending ideas for writing: the bubble hook, the zoom hook, and the group hook. This article reports on a 12-week qualitative study in which children in second grade develop as writers…

Don Graves died Tuesday, September 28, 2010. In the early 1980s, Don blew open the door to teaching children to write. His qualitative research and subsequent 26 books transformed the teaching of writing in elementary schools. He showed how much could be learned by the simple, powerful strategy of sitting beside children and asking them about…

Donald Graves's early professional books inspired Koshewa to look more deeply into student writing during the 1980s, and to value all phases of the writing process. Graves's perspective on uncovering and celebrating voice elevated Koshewa's writing instruction to a new plane. In this article, he writes about the impact that Donald Graves's work…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

Presents a profile of Patricia McKissack, giving insight into the forces that shape her work and beliefs behind it. (MG)

Presents an interview with an author of children's books covering how and why she writes. (JL)

Discusses the need for would-be writers to undertake on-the-scene research to become thoroughly familiar with a writing topic. Relates some of the author's experiences gained through such "field" work. (HTH)

Shares excerpts from an interview with George Ella Lyon who is a poet, playwright, teacher, and author of both adult and children's books. (MG)

Reviews the life and work of children's author and illustrator, Arnold Lobel. (MS)

Views both reading and writing as acts of composing and presents planning, drafting, aligning, revising, and monitoring as components of the composing model of reading. (JL)

Clarifies 21 misconceptions about the nature of writing, how writing is learned, the act of writing, and who can teach writing. (HTH)

Discusses the roles that writers must assume during the writing process and offers suggestions to help children prevent these roles from conflicting or interfering with each other during writing. (HTH)

Presents suggestions for teachers to help writing students understand when and when not to revise their writing. (HTH)

Examines a young girl's abridgment of Mara Kay's novel "Masha," focusing on the selection processes she used. Suggests that text selected for the abridgment had personal significance, while less significant or negative text was omitted. Concludes that the experience gave shape and meaning to the girl's own growing up. (MM)

Examines young children's ability to vary the forms of emergent writing as they wrote a story, a shopping list, and a letter to a friend at three different times during the school year. Finds that children apply their emergent knowledge about written language differently. Indicates a considerable mismatch between written products and knowledge of…