Many of the most influential books in language arts education have been written by current or past members of the Reading and Writing Project staff. Frequently, the Reading and Writing Project receives requests for the author of one of those books to visit with a group of teachers who have been reading that person’s latest publication. “It brings the texts that we are reading to life if we can hear from the author directly,” teachers tell us.
Although the Reading and Writing Project does not normally provide short-term staff development—we do not usually say yes to an invitation to pop into a school for one day, for example—we make an exception when a school district has been studying the professional texts that we write. If a school has been engaged in this sort of professional study and we can deepen that study by spending a day with you, we move mountains to accept such a request. The one exception is that Lucy Calkins, who has written an especially large number of books, is not personally able to support every district that is relying on those books, and so she is apt to channel such an invitation to a select group of hand-picked presenters, many of whom have been co-authors. You can read descriptions of some of those books here.
Currently, we are supporting professional reading groups that work with the following books.
Colleen Cruz
- A Quick Guide to Reaching Struggling Writers
- Writing Realistic Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions (co-author)
- Independent Writing
Mary Ehrenworth
- Looking to Write
- The Power of Grammar (co-author)
- Tackling Complex Texts in the series Units of Study for Teaching Reading: A Curriculum for the Reading Workshop (co-author)
- Constructing Curriculum in the series Units of Study for Teaching Reading: A Curriculum for the Reading Workshop(co-author)
Amanda Hartman
- Authors as Mentors, The Conferring Handbook (co-author)
- One-to-One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers (co-author)
- Conferring with Young Writers (CD-ROM) (co-author)
- Up Close: Teaching English Language Learners in Reading and Writing Workshops (DVD)
Laurie Pessah
- Nonfiction Writing Procedures and Reports in the series Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum (co-author)
- A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing (co-author)
Jennifer Serravallo
- Conferring with Readers (co-author)
- Teaching Reading in Small Groups
