Standards-Based Strategies for Middle and High School Teachers

Give your students the confidence to continuously improve their writing. Author and educator Warren Combs provides teachers with detailed strategies and lesson plans, along with real student writing samples.

Review true-to-life scripts for conversations between teachers and students. Use or create student-friendly response and final evaluation forms. Learn a simple system for setting student expectations to reach curriculum standards. Empower students with effective routines of formative self-assessment. Form a professional learning team with your colleagues using the 6-session professional learning guide.

Teachers will help their students:
• Self-assess their progress with accuracy
• Revise partial and whole drafts
• Cultivate a mindset for revision

About the Author

Warren E. Combs, Ph.D. A former classroom teacher and university professor, Dr. Combs has devoted his professional career to promoting best practices in the teaching of writing based on the conclusions of recognized research strands. He received the Ph.D. in English Education and Child Language Development from the University of Minnesota. As co-director of the Timothy Road Elementary School Writing Project with the late Bruce McNair, he developed frameworks for empowering students to learn to write, write to learn and experience grammar instruction in the context of the writing process. In 1986 he established Erincort Consulting, Inc. for the publication of Writing to Win instructional resources to support his work with K-12 public and private schools as well as home-school associations.
Dr. Combs and his associate trainers work with over 250 schools in seven states, recognizing over 140 of them as Exemplary Schools of Writing by 2008. His practical instructional strategies resonate equally well with teachers of core academic, vocational, special education, ESOL and gifted students. Signatures of Writing to Win trainers include

• demonstration of best practice in working with writing in classrooms of students as teachers observe
• action research projects with each implementation
• workshops for writing coaches that empower local leaders to maintain increased student performance.

To keep in touch with the realities of changing classroom venues, Dr. Combs works directly with several thousand students in class each year. He has authored several books and journal publications and is an invited presenter at several national and state conferences throughout the southeast and mid-west. He resides in Athens, Georgia with his wife and professional colleague, Arnelle. Their three children and three grandchildren have or are presently benefiting from the guidance of the Writing to Win frameworks of writing to learn and learning to write.