Linda J. Dorn is Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she directs the Early
Literacy Center. She has twenty years of experience in education, including eight years as an elementary classroom
teacher. Her most recent work includes the development and implementation of the Arkansas Literacy Coaching Model.
Linda conducts summer early literacy institutes for teachers across the United States, and she is a popular conference
speaker. She is co-author of Apprenticeship in Literacy (Stenhouse 1998), Shaping Literate Minds (Stenhouse 2001),
and Literacy Task Cards (Teaching Resource Center 2001), and author of the four-part video staff development series
Organizing for Literacy (Stenhouse 1999).
Soffos, Carla : University of Arkansas
Carla Soffos is a literacy coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Her sixteen years in education include
eight years as a first grade teacher. Carla works daily with classroom teachers in implementing the Arkansas Literacy
Coaching Model, and she presents workshops to school districts across the United States. She is the co-author of
Shaping Literate Minds and Literacy Task Cards and is featured in the Organizing for Literacy video series.
Summary
The goal of teaching writing is to create independent and self-motivated writers. When students write more often,
they become better at writing. They acquire habits, skills, and strategies that enable them to learn more about
the craft of writing. Yet they require the guidance and support of a more knowledgeable person who understands
the writing process, the changes over time in writing development, and specific techniques and procedures for teaching
writing.
In Scaffolding Young Writers: A Writers' Workshop Approach, Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos present a clear
road map for implementing writers' workshop in the primary grades.
Adopting an apprenticeship approach, the authors show how explicit teaching, good models, clear demonstrations,
established routines, assisted teaching followed by independent practice, and self-regulated learning are all fundamental
in establishing a successful writers' workshop. There is a detailed chapter on organizing for writers' workshop,
including materials, components, routines, and procedures. Other chapters provide explicit guidelines for designing
productive mini-lessons and student conferences.
Scaffolding Young Writers also features:
an overview of how children become writers;
analyses of students' samples according to informal and formal writing assessments;
writing checklists, benchmark behaviors, and rubrics based on national standards;
examples of teaching interactions during mini-lessons and writing conferences;
illustrations of completed forms and checklists with detailed descriptions, and blank reproducible forms in
the appendix for classroom use.
Instruction is linked with assessment throughout the book, so that all teaching interactions are grounded in
what children already know and what they need to know as they develop into independent writers.
Table of Contents
1. The Development of Young Writers
2. Assessing Writing Development
3. Organizing for Writers' Workshop
4. Designing Productive Mini-Lessons
5. Writing Conferences
Appendixes
References
Index
