Tend your Garden: Nuturing Motivation in Young Adolescent Writer

by Mary Anna Kruch

Overview

This teaching guide is based upon the Young Adolescent Motivation Model of Writing (YAMM). YAMM places the young learner, aged 11-14, at its centre, surrounded by the components needed to motivate them to high levels of academic composition or creative writing. The book shows how to develop a writing community, present high-interest lessons, integrate process writing across the curriculum, offer choice, encourage critical thinking and use authentic assessment. Literature, drama, music, drawing and painting are offered as both invitations and responses to writing. These are applied within a process-based, workshop format, with teacher modelling of each stage. Each component is clearly illustrated with best practice examples. Sample lessons representing a wide array of writing genres and content area subjects are also provided. The approach aims to motivate young adolescents, encouraging them to take responsibility for their development as writers and learners. The teacher assumes a facilitative and supportive role, discovering the strengths, interests, and literacy needs of each student.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845534516
Publisher:	Equinox Publishing
Publication date:	01/31/2012
Series:	Frameworks for Writing
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	422
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mary Anna Kruch is a full-time writer, having taught young adolescents for thirty years. Following retirement from classroom teaching and literacy coaching, she was an Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University. Kruch is a former officer in the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and an active fellow in the Red Cedar Writing Project, affiliated with the National Writing Project, at Michigan State University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Foreword by Kia Jane Richmond
Editor’s Foreword
Introduction: How I Came to Tend My Garden
Chapter 1: Nurturing the Whole Child in an Inquiry-Rich Environment
Chapter 2: Cultivating a Writing Community
Chapter 3: Engaging Young Writers with Relevant, High-Interest Lessons
Chapter 4: Growing with Process Writing Linked to Arts
Chapter 5: Motivating Writing with Choice and Critical Thinking
Chapter 6: Learner-Centered Writing in an e-Universe
Chapter 7: Sowing the Seeds of Formative, Authentic Assessment
Chapter 8: Maxim-izing Motivation via Teacher Imagination
Appendices
A: Books with Strong, Positive, Global Characters
B: Suggested Resources for “War” Theme
C: ADVERB (gray) Activity Cards for “You Be the Sentence” Lesson
D: SUBJECT (pink) Activity Cards for “You Be the Sentence” Lesson
E. VERB (blue) Activity Cards for “You Be the Sentence” Lesson
F. ADJECTIVE (green) Activity Cards for “You Be the Sentence” Lesson
G. PHRASE (red) Activity Cards for “You Be the Sentence” Lesson

Editorial Reviews

'In Tend Your Garden: Nurturing Motivation in Young Adolescent Writers, Mary Anna Kruch offers “specific ways to motivate young adolescents to write in and out of the classroom…grounded] in constructivist and sociocultural theory, as well as holistic education and motivational theory.... Kruch views young adolescent writers as active, thoughtful makers of meaning, and invites their teachers to consider themselves as co-learners with their students. The author of Tend Your Garden shares instructional techniques, lesson plan templates, and examples of writing that will help instructors to meet these goals.... Kruch’s textbook includes personal anecdotes about her thirty-year career as a middle school instructor and well-tested strategies that motivate young adolescents and invite them into the study of writing as a process. Kruch’s references to tenets from the National Writing Project as well as those by the National Council of Teachers of English successfully contextualize her arguments about writing instruction and help readers to value their own experiences as writers while considering current academic conversations about how writing should be taught…. My hope is that through reading this textbook, English educators and future writing teachers will become more invested in creating lessons that reinforce the joy of teaching young adolescent writers as critical thinkers, creative beings, and active citizens of the global community.'
From the Forward by Kia Jane Richmond, Associate Professor of English, Secondary Education, Northern Michigan University

From the Publisher