Ralph Fletcher and student writing

Ralph Fletcher has written a number of resources on helping students with writing. In particular he has written about the benefits of keeping "a writer's notebook". This latest book is available to browse online, and from page 116 are examples of some classroom approaches...

From the publisher :
Pyrotechnics on the Page helps teachers energize student writing with an in-depth look at the kind of language play commonly used by writers and 24 new craft lessons. Preview the entire book online!
Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing

Preview the book online!

Ralph Fletcher Year: 2010 Foreword by Katie Wood Ray Media: 192 pp/paper ISBN: 978-157110-783-1 Grade Range: K-8 Item No.: WEU-0783

Kate De Goldi spoke about the advantages of keeping a writers notebook when she was talking to schools in Northland last year. Good writers, she told us, are good readers, keen observers, avid recorders and from this comes the connections and new ways of seeing and describing...

See her brilliant post to the Northland students she visited on the Book Council blog : http://bookcouncil.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-kate-de-goldi.html

Ralph Fletcher and boys' writing...

Ralph Fletcher has written about the particular needs of boys in becoming writers...

"In general, we have sanitized the writing classroom (no weapons, no war, no blood, no farts) to such an extent that there’s not much left for boy writers to sink their teeth into. It’s boring! I hoped to widen the circle for boy writers. We need to get them engaged if we want them to become stronger writers."

Here is his website http://www.ralphfletcher.com/index.html

Have a look at the Teacher handouts for some good quotes http://www.ralphfletcher.com/teacher.html
and also the Tips for young writers http://www.ralphfletcher.com/tips.html

He has written a book Boy writers : Reclaiming their voices http://www.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/viewprd.asp?idProduct=9033&r=n157w&REFERER= and you can read the first chapter online

or more at Google books http://tiny.cc/BoyWriters

"At the heart of Ralph Fletcher's Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices lies the provocative notion that writing instruction isn't about teaching writing; it's about teaching writers, and upon this central premise Fletcher bases all of his ideas about how to nurture boys in the "dangerous, supervised sport" (p. 49) of writing. "

Teachers have submitted examples of boys' writing which Ralph has commented on at the Stenhouse blog http://blog.stenhouse.com/index.php?s=Fletcher&searchbutton=Go!

National Library CIS collections have books by him on writing autobiography and poetry.

There is an inverview with Ralph Fletcher on a good website called "Getting boys to read"

http://www.gettingboystoread.com/content/interview-ralph-fletcher