Product Details

• Author: Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi
• Grade Range: K-0

• Media: 4 DVDs and 4 books
• ISBN: 978FLETCH074F
• Item No.: WEB-074F

The Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi Writing Package includes:

In the Beginning (DVD)

This video explores many of the essential teacher-student transactions that support young children as they break into print including teaching skills in context, word work, and conferring with young writers. The camera follows one student, Jesse, from start to finish in a segment that reveals how simple and powerful the publishing event can be for a child.

"Dude, Listen to This!" (DVD)

The video offers us three views of boy writers: In the first segment Ralph joins Jennifer Allen, literacy specialist at Albert S. Hall Elementary School in Waterville, Maine, and becomes a temporary member of her weekly boy writers club. After the meeting, Ralph follows the boys into their fourth-grade classroom, teaches a lesson, and then confers with several students. The final segment shows Ralph meeting with a teacher study group from the Hall School that has been reading Boy Writers and examining these issues throughout the year. As the group discusses the challenges of connecting with boys and motivating them as writers, we see how their teaching has changed.

Boy Writers

In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices, Ralph Fletcher draws upon his years of experience as staff developer, children's book author, and father of four boys. He also taps the insights from dozens of writing teachers around the US and abroad. Boy Writers asks teachers to imagine the writing classroom from a boy's perspective, and consider specific steps we might take to create stimulating classrooms for boys.

When Students Write (DVD)

When Students Write takes us into the classrooms at Bailey's Elementary School in the outskirts of Washington, DC, where teachers wrestle with the questions of what it means to become an effective writer and what is a teacher's role in developing students' competence as writers. The four videos cover all the practical components necessary for establishing and implementing a successful writing workshop, including the importance of choice, creating a risk-taking environment, the difference between skills and craft, the writer's notebook, the writing conference, revision, the role of literature, and much more.

Talking About Writing (DVD)

In this two-part series we revisit Bailey's Elementary school on the outskirts of Washington, DC, to watch and listen as accomplished teachers of students in grades 3 through 5 confer with students about their writing. Program 1, The Essentials of Conferring, covers a range of topics, including active listening, knowing your writers, management, predictable problems, and peer conferences. Program 2, Refining Your Conference Skills, takes teachers deeper into the writing conference and shows how to help students build a "writer's toolbox," connect writing conferences to other parts of the workshop, raise the bar in a conference, and push your own learning by working with your colleagues. Taken together, these two programs comprise an invaluable tool for becoming a more skillful writing teacher.

Craft Lessons, Second Edition

The 95 lessons in this book provide a wealth of information for teaching leads, character, endings, stronger verbs, and much more. This new edition reestablishes Craft Lessons as the crucial “desert island book” for harried writing teachers everywhere.

Nonfiction Craft Lessons

This book will help students breathe voice into lifeless "dump-truck" writing and improve their nonfiction writing by making it clearer, more authoritative, and more organized. Nonfiction Craft Lessons gives teachers a wealth of practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers as they explore and explain the world around them.

Pyrotechnics on the Page

Ralph Fletcher
Ralph Fletcher is a friend of writing teachers everywhere. Born in Plymouth, Mass., he received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and his master's degree from Columbia University.
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JoAnn Portalupi
JoAnn Portalupi likes to introduce herself as a mother, teacher, writer, and artist. Each of these roles informs the work she does in the field of teaching writing.
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