In 1993 I was a first year teacher trying to figuring out how to teach my sixth grade students. There were two sixth grade teachers in my building and we divided up the teaching duties: I taught the reading, writing, and social studies and the other teacher taught math and science. Like many brand new teachers I relied on what I remembered from high school and junior high, and tried to mesh that with what I had learned in my methods classes. But I just never felt like what I was doing was right.

Somehow, a copy of In the Middle by Nancie Atwell landed in my hands. I have no idea how I learned about it or where I bought it, but I remember reading it for the first time. Nancie's stories of how giving her students choices and honoring their voices changed her teaching opened my eyes to a whole new way of approaching my classes. I became intrigued by this idea of a writing workshop... could I do that in my classes? Could I stop assigning writing and begin teaching the writers sitting in front of me? Could I give up certain elements of control and turn the classroom over to my students? I wish I could say that I jumped right in with both feet and went full on writing workshop for the rest of that year, but I can't. What I did do, though, was start slowly... figuring out where I could build choice in to my writing curriculum.

It took a good 12 years or so and a change of schools, but eventually I got there. I figured out how to make the reading/writing workshop work for my students. I made several stops and starts, and I had to figure out that I could not BE Nancie. I had to make the workshop work for my students and me. I learned the importance of teaching the writers, not the writing, to honor student voices, and allow them choices in as many ways as I can. The growth I see in my students each year blows me away. I know I'm sending them on, not only with a firm foundation as readers and writers, but as people who have found purpose and joy in reading and writing.

Mindi Rench, SRL President

As a literacy coach, one of the most frequent questions I received from teachers was how to teach students to elaborate in their writing. We used mentor texts, we used color coding the levels of support, we tried everything we could think of. And we were successful... mostly. Then I discovered The Big Book of Details by Rozlyn Linder (Heinemann, 2016). It was like a dream come true.

This book breaks details down into five different categories, explains the reasons writers use this kind of support, gives mentor text examples from young adult literature, and offers lesson suggestions. As I paged through, I realized that we had been trying to teach elaboration in a general way. We hadn't looked at the specific purpose of the writing in order to match the specific kind of details to the writing our students were doing. It was one of those "duh!" moments for me as a teacher and coach.

The Big Book of Details is an amazing resource for anyone who teaches writing; I used the lessons with my sixth grade striving writers, but it could also be used with high school writers as well. The strength of this book is its simplicity: you can find specific lessons to meet the needs of your unique students and get practical, tested strategies that you can use as is or adjust as needed.

Want to know more? You can see a sample chapter and a video of Rozlyn Linder talking about the book by visiting the Heinemann website here.