Best Selling Books by Maity Schrecengost

If you''ve ever said to your intermediate writers, "Write more about this topic!" you''re not alone. Unelaborated writing is a top challenge for teachers and the number one reason students score poorly on writing assessments. But how do you teach students to show and not tell? What are the specific techniques all strong writers choose to produce clear, well-elaborated narrative and expository writing? Writing Whizardry gives you 70 self-contained elaboration mini-lessons--each focusing on a specific Target Skill® elaboration technique. Each lesson pairs a writing sample that needs revision with a micro-mentor text example of polished writing--saving you time and energy. Choose the lessons you need to reinforce particular skills, or use the book regularly as an important component of your writing workshop. Additional literature suggestions enable you to extend and reinforce the lessons, and the reproducibles and black-line masters give you flexible instructional options for different instructional settings. Writing Whizardry helps you: easily tailor writing workshops to meet writing deficiencies; save time with ready-to-go elaboration strategies; and cover virtually all the elaboration techniques writers use. Whether you use Writing Whizardry in literacy stations, small-group, or whole-class settings, you will watch your students grow into enthusiastic writers who know exactly how to create clear, detailed, "show-me" writing.

Tired of dull, formula-driven writing from students? Discover Voice Whizardry and reawaken their slumbering voices! Easily adaptable to any balanced language arts program, these 36 Discovery Activities teach students in grades 4-8 how to identify the subtle elements of voice and use them skillfully in any writing situation. With literary models and student writing samples for narrative and expository writing throughout, this resource will show teachers and students how to: Recognize voice in the writing of others; Choose writing topics carefully; Personalize and focus responses to write-on-demand prompts; Adapt writing voice to different audiences and genres; and Expand vocabulary --essential for writing growth Plus, each Discover Activity includes a new kind of mini-lesson that helps teachers explore their own voice before introducing the skill to the class --perfect for Professional Growth and/or Development Plans.

Teach students how to use library resources for biographical research with this handbook! They''ll learn how to organize their library research and be introduced to encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, directories, indexes, and other biographical resources available in the library. It also includes computerized indexes and databases, reference use of the Internet and multimedia.

In 1905 when his father and brother sail from Greece to Florida to work in the sponge industry, twelve-year-old Tasso stows away on the same ship to share their adventures.

This concise student handbook on preparing research reports covers everything from choosing a topic to editing the final draft. It includes lots of examples on how to find information, create an outline, organize notes and prepare the final report.

This guidebook is written for the middle school student who needs to research and report an issue of significance or controversy, which could be anything from school violence to bioethics to drug laws to environmental policy.

Rudy longs to be an aerialist, but Shorty wants him to follow in his own clown footsteps. When Rudy learns the truth behind his objections, he has hard choices to make. Will he follow his father''s path, or will he risk his anger and its repercussions to make his dream a reality?

After moving to the Tampa, Florida area in the 1840s, a young pioneer girl befriends the son of a Seminole chief.

An introductory guide to using library resources for a research paper on historical or contemporary events.

Teach students how to use library resources for biographical research with this handbook! They''ll learn how to organize their library research and be introduced to encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, directories, indexes, and other biographical resources available in the library. It also includes computerized indexes and databases, reference use of the Internet and multimedia. A teacher''s guide, containing background notes, complete lesson plans, and reproducibles is sold separately, below.

Learn how successful writers develop their stories to grab and hold reader attention and how to make characters come to life. These principles are explained in clear language with interesting examples and other guidelines for good writing.