The Next-Step Guide to Enhancing Writing Instruction

Writing Workshop has been around for over twenty years, and since that time hundreds (maybe even thousands) of outstanding books and articles have been written about the teaching of writing in K–6 classrooms. It’s impossible to keep up with the abundance of knowledge and insights on the teaching of writing. Fortunately, we now have The Next-Step Guide to Enhancing Writing Instruction to guide our way. Bonnie Hill Campbell and Carrie Ekey, both remarkable and experienced educators, have travelled to schools all over the United States and to international schools throughout the world to teach, learn, and explore alongside students and teachers. This book is the synthesis of their findings.

The Next-Step Guide to Enhancing Writing Instruction is a brilliantly written, clear, concise, comprehensive overview of the workshop approach to teaching writing. It includes chapters on: writing workshop; units of study; writing instruction; writing conferences; and word study, and discusses genre studies, gender and writing, families and writing, word study, spelling and conventions, and ELL. It also gives us rubrics and resources for goal setting and a comprehensive book and resource list.

The Next-Step Guide to Enhancing Writing Instruction subtitle reads “for literacy coaches, principals, and teacher study groups, K–6” but I believe everyone should read this book. If you’re a novice to writing workshop, this is the book you should read first to help you on your journey as a teacher of writing. If you’ve been teaching writing for many years and consider yourself an expert, you should read this book to inspire you further and to help you incorporate new ideas. If you’re a literacy coach or a principal of a school, you should read this book to help you sift through the breadth of information to help others teach writing more effectively.

—Georgia Heard
Author of The Revision Toolbox

Bonnie Campbell Hill and Carrie Ekey have done it again! After their last stunning book, The Next-Step Guide to Enriching Classroom Environments, these ladies have raised the bar, yet again, on modeling what exemplary teaching looks like. Not only will this book inspire you as a teacher in your on-going professional development, but it will also reaffirm all the great writing instruction you may already be doing in your classroom and without even realizing it! With each turn of the page, the reader quickly realizes the treasure which is held within its covers. The best part about reading The Next-Step Guide to Enhancing Writing Instruction is that it is like sitting down with Bonnie and Carrie and having a one-on-one conversation. Both books are a must have for beginning or veteran teachers alike!

—Tommy Duncan
The American International School of Muscat
Muscat, Oman