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Everyday Editing: Inviting Students to Develop Skill and Craft in Writer's Workshop
Editing is often seen as one item on a list of steps in the writing process, usually put somewhere near the end, and often completely crowded out of writer' s workshop. Too many times daily editing lessons happen in a vacuum, with no relationship to what students are writing. In Everyday Editing , Jeff Anderson asks teachers to reflect on what sort of message this approach sends to students. Does it tell them that editing and revision are meaningful parts of the writing process, or just a hunt for errors with a 50/50 chance of getting it right,comma or no comma? Instead of rehearsing errors and drilling students on what' s wrong with a sentence, Jeff invites students to look carefully at their writing along with mentor texts, and to think about how punctuation, grammar, and style can be best used to hone and communicate meaning. Written in Jeff' s characteristically witty style, this refreshing and practical guide offers an overview of his approach to editing within the writing workshop as well as ten detailed sets of lessons covering everything from apostrophes to serial commas. These lessons can be used throughout the year to replace Daily Oral Language or error-based editing strategies with a more effective method for improving student writing.
174 pages, Paperback
First published October 16, 2007
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438 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Anderson
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
June 24, 2013
Yep, yep, yep! This is a must read. Jeff even gives you 10 detailed lessons to follow if you want to make his INVITATION TO..... part of your classroom.
And the greatest thing about it is HE IS A TEACHER. IN THE CLASSROOM NOW. :)
Now I am on to read his other one, Mechanically Inclined, which I think he wrote before this one.
And the greatest thing about it is HE IS A TEACHER. IN THE CLASSROOM NOW. :)
Now I am on to read his other one, Mechanically Inclined, which I think he wrote before this one.
June 5, 2012
As I read this book, I said to my husband, "I get to read about teaching appositive phrasing now! I am so excited! I am not being sarcastic!" ;) Yes, I am an English grammar nerd. Anderson, using the same model of mentor texts that he uses in "Ten Things Every Writer Needs to Know" provides ten sample lessons that invite students to see patterns of coherent writing and then use them for themselves. My only quibble with this (and perhaps his other book) is that I feel that my students would kill me if I spent too long asking them to talk about one sentence or passage...although if I did it consistently from the beginning, maybe they'd just roll their eyes at me and move on.
July 14, 2009
This loaner is just what I needed to prepare for Freshman English grammar. Rather than have students detect mistakes in sample sentences, present examples of good craft with opportunities for students to notice what is contained in a sentence. Changing pieces of the sentence for students to "notice" was sometimes difficult and I consider myself a good proofreader!
December 27, 2010
This is a really wonderful book for English teachers and homeschooling moms!! He teaches the reader to teach writing skills in the context of real writing. He also talks about which skills really help kids improve as writers.
February 11, 2015
Jeff Anderson knows how to make teaching grammar practical, succinct, and, dare I say, fun. Instead of mind-numbing exercises, he makes it all about invitations to notice, imitate, celebrate, collect, write, combine, revise, edit, and extend.
January 20, 2013
I want to marry this book. If you are a writing teacher, you MUST read this book. Again and again and again.
February 17, 2016
"Many writers say they learned a lot about writing from reading."
Genre: Education and Teaching.
Number of Pages: 176.
Wow, this book was incredible! It is an amazing resource for any grade level English teacher (yes, even college) to teach students how to learn to refine and edit their own writing. I even learned a few new things about grammar.
It starts off with pedagogy for a classroom where students learn to not hate grammar and editing. The point is to provide valuable learning experiences so that the students learn grammar through application, not drills and lectures. Most of the lessons in this book involve exploring mentor texts (quality writing) and dissecting why it is successful. That allows the students to understand why something works in a sentence, rather than only pointing out what is wrong. The mentor texts in this book are incredible and make this book invaluable. The author just saved every teacher a million hours in work searching for the perfect sentences to match each lesson! They all are easy for students to imitate, they model effective writing, and connect to the students� schema.
After the first few chapters, this book provides many lessons that follow a similar format, which got to be a bit repetitive after a while, but it is great if you are jumping around and only reading the chapters that pertain to your course. I think it is still beneficial to read the book all the way through to pick and choose which ideas will work for you and your class. There are ten sets of lessons based on a specific grammar topic: serial comma, colons, capitalization, apostrophes, simple sentences, verb choice, appositives, paragraphs, compound sentences, and dialogue. Each lesson contains seven parts to get the students engaged. They include invitations to: notice, imitate, celebrate, write, revise, combine, and edit. I think that these parts could easily be made into mini-lessons so that you are just spending a few minutes a day working on grammar.
To read the rest of my review, go here:
Genre: Education and Teaching.
Number of Pages: 176.
Wow, this book was incredible! It is an amazing resource for any grade level English teacher (yes, even college) to teach students how to learn to refine and edit their own writing. I even learned a few new things about grammar.
It starts off with pedagogy for a classroom where students learn to not hate grammar and editing. The point is to provide valuable learning experiences so that the students learn grammar through application, not drills and lectures. Most of the lessons in this book involve exploring mentor texts (quality writing) and dissecting why it is successful. That allows the students to understand why something works in a sentence, rather than only pointing out what is wrong. The mentor texts in this book are incredible and make this book invaluable. The author just saved every teacher a million hours in work searching for the perfect sentences to match each lesson! They all are easy for students to imitate, they model effective writing, and connect to the students� schema.
After the first few chapters, this book provides many lessons that follow a similar format, which got to be a bit repetitive after a while, but it is great if you are jumping around and only reading the chapters that pertain to your course. I think it is still beneficial to read the book all the way through to pick and choose which ideas will work for you and your class. There are ten sets of lessons based on a specific grammar topic: serial comma, colons, capitalization, apostrophes, simple sentences, verb choice, appositives, paragraphs, compound sentences, and dialogue. Each lesson contains seven parts to get the students engaged. They include invitations to: notice, imitate, celebrate, write, revise, combine, and edit. I think that these parts could easily be made into mini-lessons so that you are just spending a few minutes a day working on grammar.
To read the rest of my review, go here:
July 2, 2012
Jeff Anderson makes a terrific case for this "invitational" (as opposed to prescriptivist) approach to teaching editing. He lays out his approach and rationale in three opening chapters, and then follows them up with 10 sample lessons, which usually follow part of this formula:
Introduction
Invitation to Notice
Invitation to Collect
Invitation to Imitate
Invitation to Celebrate
Invitation to Write
Invitation to Revise
Invitation to Combine
Invitation to Edit
Extending the Invitation
Most of these mini-lessons were valuable as a refresher for me as a teacher, although I did find the "Invitation to Edit" sections to be highly repetitive. I skipped reading them after a while.
Anderson includes some great model sentences, paragraphs, and passages in this book. He also shares some terrific activities, including uncombining, appositive flip-books, and paragraph bar charts. Although Jeff's audience seems to be middle school teachers (One of the chapters is on capitalization.), I will steal and adapt from this book for my high school English classroom.
I will return to this book for inspiration and ideas.
Introduction
Invitation to Notice
Invitation to Collect
Invitation to Imitate
Invitation to Celebrate
Invitation to Write
Invitation to Revise
Invitation to Combine
Invitation to Edit
Extending the Invitation
Most of these mini-lessons were valuable as a refresher for me as a teacher, although I did find the "Invitation to Edit" sections to be highly repetitive. I skipped reading them after a while.
Anderson includes some great model sentences, paragraphs, and passages in this book. He also shares some terrific activities, including uncombining, appositive flip-books, and paragraph bar charts. Although Jeff's audience seems to be middle school teachers (One of the chapters is on capitalization.), I will steal and adapt from this book for my high school English classroom.
I will return to this book for inspiration and ideas.
June 29, 2012
Every summer I try to read at least one professional book on a subject that I am curious about or something I want to improve in teaching. Teaching grammar to upper elementary and middle school students is a challenge, especially if you want it "to stick." DOL (Daily Oral Language), which-sentence-is-written-correctly, and similar types of practice just aren't effective. I've been using Sentence Observations, and the kids are learning more. But with the "Invitations" idea, the students can see reasons why as well as practice the skill.
I really think the curriculum supervisors of the various districts and student teaching departments in colleges and universitoes should get on-board with this strategy. It's easy to implement, and it works. This is a great source to use.
This book contains 10 lesson sets: Using commas, teaching colons, teaching capitalization, knowing when to use an apostrophe correctly, teaching simple sentences, teaching verb choice, teaching appositives, teaching paragraphs, teaching compound sentences, and teaching dialogue. These lessons will help our students become better writers and more comfortable with the process of writing.
I really think the curriculum supervisors of the various districts and student teaching departments in colleges and universitoes should get on-board with this strategy. It's easy to implement, and it works. This is a great source to use.
This book contains 10 lesson sets: Using commas, teaching colons, teaching capitalization, knowing when to use an apostrophe correctly, teaching simple sentences, teaching verb choice, teaching appositives, teaching paragraphs, teaching compound sentences, and teaching dialogue. These lessons will help our students become better writers and more comfortable with the process of writing.
May 27, 2013
This was an interesting book, but not exactly what I needed. (It was recommended to me, but now I'm not sure why.)
However, if you are an educator (particularly if you're an English teacher), this would be an incredibly useful book. Anderson does a good job of explaining why understanding current grammar rules is important, despite the fact that language changes--this is a fact he never denies. He also has many ideas for how to make grammar lessons fun and more meaningful than just parsing sentence after sentence on a piece of homework. Bonus: the book comes with ten lessons. Note, though, that Anderson teaches upper elementary school and some middle school, not high school.
I can think of a few English teachers from my past who could have benefited greatly from reading this book...not to mention their students.
However, if you are an educator (particularly if you're an English teacher), this would be an incredibly useful book. Anderson does a good job of explaining why understanding current grammar rules is important, despite the fact that language changes--this is a fact he never denies. He also has many ideas for how to make grammar lessons fun and more meaningful than just parsing sentence after sentence on a piece of homework. Bonus: the book comes with ten lessons. Note, though, that Anderson teaches upper elementary school and some middle school, not high school.
I can think of a few English teachers from my past who could have benefited greatly from reading this book...not to mention their students.
July 31, 2010
I read Jeff Anderson's first book, Mechanically Inclined, last year, and I quickly ditched D.O.L. This book helps me understand the process of implementing invitations to notice, imitate, celebrate, combine, and write. I now have a clearer picture of how to integrate editing into my daily writer's workshop.
The author tells a story about a student who gets a paper back from his teacher that looks like a red pen bled all over it. Anderson explains that the teacher's intentions were pure, but in her attempt to help the boy see his mistakes she killed his love of writing.
I love how Anderson focuses on the bright spots of the writing process. I can't wait to start collecting sentences to share with my kiddos!
The author tells a story about a student who gets a paper back from his teacher that looks like a red pen bled all over it. Anderson explains that the teacher's intentions were pure, but in her attempt to help the boy see his mistakes she killed his love of writing.
I love how Anderson focuses on the bright spots of the writing process. I can't wait to start collecting sentences to share with my kiddos!
May 29, 2014
The premise of this book turns older methods of grammar instruction on their heads. Rather than beginning by teaching students to hunt for mechanical errors, Jeff Anderson invites students to observe and imitate good usage in order to understand it. This is a valuable concept, and the explanation of it takes up the first third of the book.
The remainder of the book walks through the application of this method to various aspects of grammar, which quickly becomes repetitive. I'll keep this as a resource for when these topics come up, but reading them all at once isn't productive for me, so I abandoned this one about two-thirds of the way through.
Kindle edition note: The ebook formatting is unforgivably bad. If you want to read this book, get a hard copy.
The remainder of the book walks through the application of this method to various aspects of grammar, which quickly becomes repetitive. I'll keep this as a resource for when these topics come up, but reading them all at once isn't productive for me, so I abandoned this one about two-thirds of the way through.
Kindle edition note: The ebook formatting is unforgivably bad. If you want to read this book, get a hard copy.
December 24, 2016
This is a book about looking at mentor texts to recognize correct grammar and punctuation in model sentences. It is *not* about finding and fixing errors. Jeff Anderson demonstrates how to teach students to recognize and imitate patterns, using popular Y.A. books as mentor texts. He focuses on celebrating successes instead of pointing out student mistakes. Although this book is geared towards middle school students and teachers, I know my high school students will benefit from Anderson's approach/philosophy, which he incorporates into ten grammar lessons. Grammar and punctuation should *not* be taught in isolation. This book offers a way to connect the mechanics of writing instruction with the real-world tasks of reading and writing.
September 22, 2011
I think this is one of the most logical and effective approaches to writing and grammar I have come across. It engages the student with relevant, writing based activities instead of random grammar exercises that are not connected to anything of real world value. The "invitation to notice" style is an approach that I feel most comfortable with anyway, and to see it used so effectively with writing practice is really neat. I'm looking forward to reading his other book, Mechanically Inclined.
March 22, 2012
I attended an afternoon PD that Jeff Anderson spoke at and received a copy of this wonderful book. I already knew that I liked his approach, based on his presentation, but I had no idea that I would actually enjoy reading the book. It is rare to find a book about grammar and writing that I actually want to continue reading, but Anderson's amusing and light writing style not only grabbed my attention, but also held it. I can't wait to start teaching my students the lessons he has shared!
July 20, 2009
I've been to one of his workshops and I like this book. He writes in a casual style, an approachable style -- not stuffy or pretentious. Anderson offers practical advice on approaching lessons in a solid format that you could use as he presents, or if you have more teaching experience, you can borrow what fits into your teaching style.
Need to read his other books.
Need to read his other books.
March 26, 2016
This is a must read book for teaching grammar and punctuation through writing, in meaningful way. The first three chapters show you how the author teaches editing skills and then he goes on to give detailed lesson plans for 10 different grammar points. Once you've read it, you can go on to apply it to any grammar point or that you want to teach.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2017
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.
May 30, 2018
Although it's an older book by Jeff Anderson, I really loved the concept of teaching grammar and structure through mentor texts rather than through corrections. It makes so much more sense to build correct writing than to keep showing students bad writing.
I really liked it and will likely add more Jeff Anderson books to my collection.
I really liked it and will likely add more Jeff Anderson books to my collection.
June 14, 2010
This book deserves 4.5 stars, but since they didn't allow for that, I'm giving it 4. This book has practical advice about implementing grammar instruction and tons of great lesson material. I'm docking the 0.5 for organization. If I was editing his book it would have been much better!
September 5, 2010
One of the books that I wanted to read for my Professional Growth Plan this year. I love his style and creativity. I can definitely use his mini-lessons within my curriculum to help my kids "get" English grammar.
October 14, 2011
This is another great book by Jeff Anderson which looks at editing as an invitation to enhance meaning vs. fixing errors. It has 10 developed lesson plans to teach editing in order to improve the craft of writing.
June 26, 2012
I love reading about how great teachers teach, and Jeff Anderson is obviously a great teacher. His approach of using great sentences to teach grammar instead of sentences riddled with mistakes not only makes sense, but I think it will make learning editing much more enjoyable as well.
August 23, 2012
I like this book much better than Mechanically Inclined by the same author. The ideas in this book do not seem as overwhelming and time consuming as the other ideas. I am excited to try some of them.
October 13, 2013
I think this is a fresh approach to teaching grammar and editing. I saw Jeff at a workshop and there was much grumbling from fellow teachers, but I plan to teach this way from now on. Quick easy read.
March 12, 2014
Love this approach to grammar and editing: immerse kids in examples of great writing, not sterile, intentionally incorrect sentences. I plan to start every class this way next year in Writing Workshop: start with an powerful mentor sentence; and invite kids to notice, imitate, share, and praise.
August 22, 2016
I would give this book five stars, but I haven't tried using his lessons in my room yet. I have them in my plans and they are easy to integrate into what I'm already doing, but I need to try this in order to see if they work...
February 22, 2010
Anderson's books are fun to read and packed with ideas that are easily adapted into any classroom. A must-read for anyone teaching writing.
July 26, 2010
Just finished leading a bookstudy for this over the summer. I believe this is the ONLY best way to teach editing, grammar, punctuation. I am going to give it a try this fall in my class.
June 4, 2011
This man writes the best books for English teachers. It's like my Bible...
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