"Writing and Rewriting" + "First Draft Reading"

I really thought that the New-Model of Teaching Writing was a huge step up from the traditional method. I can remember being in high school, and during my freshman year, all of the writing that we did in class was structured by the teacher from point A to point B. We were given a topic by the teacher, the teacher decided that you needed a certain amount of sources, quotes, paraphrases, etc., and the teacher decided every structural component of the paper. All we did as students was find information for our paper and write it. The lack of choice that we were allowed when it was time to write papers really made it hard to stay focused on writing, because there wasn't any interest in what we were writing about.

I really like the fact that the new model offers so much choice from the students; if you think about it, giving so much freedom to the students takes a lot of weight off the teacher as well, because the teacher doesn't have to come up with topics for 25-30 students. I understand the need for the predetermined topics for the Writing on Demand, but students need to have that choice for their writing most of the time to keep them interested in writing.

I also like that Christenbury provides instructions for Writing/Revision Groups. That's something I'll use in my own classroom.

I really enjoyed Chapter 4 of Deeper Reading as well. There are so many useful strategies in the chapter. I think my favorite was the color coding. The only problem I could see with that is having students color code can become very time consuming, and if you're using textbooks, it doesn't really work out.