In this step-by-step guide, Carl Anderson shows you how to put teaching with mentor texts at the center of the way you teach writing in your elementary classroom. You’ll learn how to find just-right mentor texts for your students, analyze them for multiple craft and convention teaching points, and teach with mentor texts with your whole class, in small group lessons, and... more

How to Become a Better Writing Teacher is a hands-on, practical guide for teachers looking to improve their writing instruction. Carl and Matt offer 50 high-impact actions teachers can take to level up key aspects of their practice, including:

• getting to know your students as people and assessing them as writers
• increasing student engagement in

How can I get started with conferring or improve my conferences?
How can I fit conferences into my busy writing workshop schedule?
How can conferences help me meet the diverse needs of student writers?

Helping students become better writers is what writing conferences are all about.In A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Conferences, Carl Anderson explains... more

When it comes to writing assessment, there's no better judge of what your students know and are able to do than you. And when it comes to advice on best practices for assessment, there's no better source than Carl Anderson's Assessing Writers. Like he did in the popular and highly acclaimed How's It Going?, Anderson offers smart, ready-to-use ideas for... more

This is by far the best writing on the conference I have read. It is a book that is far superior to the other texts-including my own.
—Donald M. Murray

Our one-on-one talks with students during writing workshop offer us perfect opportunities to zero in on what each student needs as a writer. As Lead Staff Developer for the Teachers... more