Everyday Editing

I teach 7th grade Language Arts (modified). This year, I realized that editing and revising skills were lacking in my classroom. This book was suggested in our district curriculum documents, so I bought it to look over during Thanksgiving break. It is fantastic. The book is laid out so that you can get a sense of how the lessons work in the beginning of the book and see in-depth lessons on specific topics through the rest of the book.After the break, I was able to fit in portions of the editing lessons for 10 minutes at the beginning of each class. They are natural exercises that are simple to implement and rely on student thinking, feedback, and practice. And they are NOT painful! I plan to use these lessons every year, alternating between independent reading to start class and editing activities to start class, depending on what unit we're in.Lesson topics include:Serial commaColonsCapitalizationApostrophesSimple sentencesVerb choiceAppositivesParagraphsCompound sentencesDialogue

I have one child in intermediate school and one child I home school. This book adds another layer to teaching how to write well, and I utilize it primarily with my home schooled child who loves to write. While the author is not a fan of traditional editing exercises, we still do a few of those a week. However, I definitely think he has a valid point that we focus so much on what is wrong with a student's writing, we don't put enough attention on the positives both in the student's writing and in literature. The book is is more focused for use by teachers in the classroom, but I've been able to use his same ideas with my daughter in our unique setting. With the increased testing on writing at ever younger ages (horrible STARR test in TX), there is little joy to be found in writing instruction which is very unfortunate. It's nice to see a teacher really try to get kids to write well and actually enjoy the process.

Most books I have purchased in the past along this line give students sentences to correct. Jeff on the other hand has taken sentences from great works and used them to teach students. These are mentor texts. You can take examples he has there and use them in your classroom. Great examples to help you with your classroom writer’s workshop.

Anderson's entire approach to grammar teaching is through experiential learning. Here's his approach: invite students to observe a mentor text (sentence), invite students to talk about what they observe, invite students to imitate the author's writing craft using grammar conventions, invite students to analyze what they created from the imitation.Students learn grammar through trying it, experiencing grammar's power not as a rule to remember but as tools to create meaning. I'm seeing the power of this approach with my English language learners who are native Chinese speakers.

This is a remarkable book about how to teach grammar by having students take notice of the published writing around them. Full of examples and ideas to get kids thinking about how to make their writing better, this book gave me a new approach to grammar and writing instruction. I find myself writing down examples from everything I read now, and students are finding examples to post in the room too.

I've had this book for a couple of years, and I read it every summer in preparation for the new school year. I've taught 7th grade English Language Arts for 20 years and this book contains commissions and examples for teaching students to proofread their own writing and their classmates. The organization is logical. The examples are spot on. The rationale makes sense. Well worth it.

I use this book frequently since it is bursting with helpful ideas for how to teach grammar and mechanics using award-winning mentor texts rather than DOL sentences that are riddled with errors. Like Kelly Gallagher, Anderson presents irrefutable evidence that teachers should be writing with students rather than merely assigning.

This book changed the way that I looked at teaching writing and editing. The task doesn't seem so daunting to my students now. Great read!