Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers

Nowhere does the description of this book say that it is mainly useful for grades K-8. I'm a high school teacher and can adapt use some of the strategies but would have preferred to save my $40 since it's geared toward elementary students.

I pre-ordered this book in early January because I have The Reading Strategies Book and love it. I figured this book would be great, too. It was a nice surprise when this book showed up over a month later, as I wasn't sure when it was supposed to ship. I am so glad I did the pre-order, as this book did not disappoint! Jennifer Serravallo has created another indispensable resource! I have talked so many teachers into buying The Reading Strategies Book, and I have already shared this book with many who want to buy it. This book is a great resource for conferring, strategy groups, and mini-lessons during writing workshop. This book complements the Lucy Calkins Units of Study and other writing resources that I use, and I especially appreciate how Jennifer Serravallo has brought together so many effective strategies into one easy to navigate volume. I started using The Writing Strategies Book as soon as I received it. It was so easy to find several strategies that my students need. I know this will be a well used resource for years to come. It is well worth the price.

Too many gaps. There are prerequisites and scaffolding that are missing for ELL students to engage. Sorry, I did not like the book. I am an admirer of New Jersey writing strategies, which I do enjoy, but ELL's do need more help than this.. I do like the four-square strategy in the book though.

The book has great lessons, but I have two gripes. 1. The lesson titles don't really tell you what the lessons cover, so you have to read the lesson. I draw my comparison from The reading strategies book which had titles for the lessons that told exactly what it was about. It's a bit more work is all.
2. A few more lessons on revising and editing would be good. The Texas state test puts a lot of stock in that part of the writing process, so we emphasize it a bit more.

This is quite possibly the perfect book for writing instruction. It is thorough, yet each lesson only takes up a page (no extended reading required!) so that I can quickly assess whether a lesson will be a good fit for my students (4th grade). It is formatted nicely so that I know directly where to go if I want to find a particular strategy. Most of the lessons in this book can be used throughout each grade level with a bit of tweaking on the teacher's end. Each lesson also includes a handy visual aid -- super easy to skim through and find something that you're looking for. I cannot praise this book enough. The lessons aren't even timed, as in: you can teach a strategy in a 5-minute mini-lesson (like I do, with 25 minutes of independent practice) or a 25-minute block with guided practice. The practicality, adaptability, and thoroughness of this book makes it my go-to resource for writing.

As soon as I saw that Jennifer Serravallo had written another book, I knew I had to buy it. I even took it with me out to dinner the day that I purchased it because I was so excited to delve into it!
As a third grade teacher in my 20th year of teaching, I feel as if I finally have both validation of my methods as well as some unbelievable resources. Through the use of colorful model anchor charts, succinct lesson ideas, and a very clearly organized format, Serravallo provides teachers a plan for attacking Writers Workshop. I've sticky noted so many pages and have already loaned it to a colleague in the first week of owning this book. I'm eagerly anticipating another book from Jennifer, who clearly walks the walk and talks the talk of a Literacy teacher!

This book is a must for every district, school, teacher, parent, and student. Jennifer Serravalo does the best job I've seen at providing explanations and strategies beginning with the emergent writer, and all the way to a proficient writer. From the book, one of greatest insights for me, is that great writing is not limited to a completed writing piece, but the organized expression of ideas, thoughts, and opinions. With literally hundreds of strategies, the process and fulfillment of writing becomes methodical in a way that is exciting, understandable, and rewarding. So if you're looking for a writing book that has is all, for every student k-12, this is it!

A few years ago, Jennifer Serravallo's Reading Strategies book instantly became my go-to resource for planning small groups in Reading Workshop, and for building my repertoire for conferring. Once I was able to release my grip on it, it quickly spread around our school as an informative, yet practical guide for teachers ranging from KG to Grade 5.
One week after receiving this new Writing Strategies book, I can see it taking the same path. Already my copy is flapping with post-it notes that are driving my inspiration, motivation and preparation for writing small groups. The book is ideal for trouble-shooting a specific need, for filling in gaps in a unit or finding strategies to enrich accomplished writers. I can imagine that it will quickly become foundational not only in my day-to-day teaching but also in guiding my grade team and the school in general as a literacy coach and leader.

This book is phenomenal! Because Jen is so connected in schools, you can tell this book was written by a real writing teacher for other writing teachers!

My favorite part of the book is the Getting Started chapter because it takes such a complex concept of writing workshop and puts it in ways that teachers can both understand and apply the practices into their classroom. That chapter alone is a great crash course of the leading researchers, such as Murray, Graves, and Calkins. It helps take theory and put it into practice through tips, visuals, and building of background knowledge.

Our district purchased this book as a complement to Lucy Calkins' Units of Study for Writing and it meshes so well with that curriculum! You can feel Lucy's influence on Jen's writing. This book is the perfect way to differentiate for a variety of writers in K-8 classrooms. I absolutely love how the text is organized by writing goal, really focusing on what individual (or groups) of writers need. I also appreciate how each strategy includes a Hat Tip, acknowledging the source of the strategy, prompts to use when working with students, and suggestions for ways to adapt the strategy for different genres/contexts. This text is the perfect complement to our existing curriculum and I can already see how this resource will continue to shift our teachers in a direction that focuses on writers, not pieces of writing.

If you are a writing teacher, this is a must-have book for your classroom! Not only is it jammed pack with a solid theoretical foundation and helpful strategies, but it's super simple to navigate and implement. I can't wait to see the transformation in student writing after using this text!