“Passion drives effort. If we want students to invest effort in learning to write well, we must provide opportunities to explore their passions and find relevance in their writing. Georgia Heard shows us how to open students’ hearts, discover their stories, and bring their passions to the page. Rich with practical strategies, student examples, and lists of mentor texts, Heart Maps is a book that I will use and recommend to teachers for years to come.”
—Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer
“This book will steal your heart. Filled with strategies, student work examples, stories from the classroom, mentor texts, inspiration, and practicality, you’ll find yourself relying on this book again and again as a trusted source as you help your student writers craft a writing life.”
—Jennifer Serravallo, author of The Reading Strategies Book and the forthcoming The Writing Strategies Book
“We understand that children read and write more earnestly and truthfully when engaged by emotion. We have, in Heart Maps, a stunning array of potential discoveries for young readers and writers: discoveries about what really lies within our complex emotional lives; about the budding passion they find in the social or natural world; and about the hearts of those around them. The discoveries and insights children will make as they craft heart maps will be lasting and profound.”
—Ellin Keene, author of Talk About Understanding; coeditor of The Teacher You Want to Be
“From the first page of Heart Maps, Georgia takes us on a journey of ‘possible’ from a child’s-eye-view with 20 heart maps as our navigation tool. She helps us envision writing from the inside out, taking us on a passionate voyage unfettered by impersonal rules where joyful meanderings of powerful, personal, purposeful writing keep ‘possible’ in view.”
—Dr. Mary Howard, author of Good to Great Teaching and RTI from All Sides
“Heart Maps is filled with wonder and beauty. It will capture and hold the why of any writer’s journey: to name the passions that live inside of us, waiting to be written. Georgia offers wise guidance and practical tools for writing teachers of all ages, including 20 kinds of heart maps and dozens and dozens of mentor poems and gorgeous student examples to spring deep thinking across genres. This is a rich and lasting gift for my own teaching and an essential book for all who lead writers.”
—Penny Kittle, author of Book Love and Write Beside Them
“Heart Maps shows and powerfully provides a tangible way for a teacher to help a child plumb their natural creativity. The heart map method is also a bridge: by using and being open to it, a solid connection between the teacher and student is inevitable. Even more, by practicing heart maps, a child can learn to connect with their own vast and unique identity as a writer-for-life. There may be no greater gift a teacher can give.”
—John Fox, author of Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making; founder of The Institute for Poetic Medicine
