Book Review

Teaching Adolescent Writers

by Kelly Gallagher

Teachers’ time is precious. Rarely do we have the opportunity to sit down and read a book for pleasure let alone something that will improve our craft. However, teachers of writing can, should, and need to read Kelly Gallagher’s Teaching Adolescent Writing.

This is not some dry, philosophical rumination on the merits of writing. No, Gallagher establishes that there is a “literacy stampede” taking place in the modern world. Essentially, individuals living in the modern world are inundated with the written word and they have a choice: have the stampe overrun them or run with the bulls, meaning people have to write and they have to write a lot, twice as much as they already are doing.

Building on this premise of a literacy stampede, Gallagher provides a way to not be overrun in the stampede. His book is divided into seven chapters and a series of appendicies. The chapters provide a practical way to implement nearly an entire writing curriculum (he provides a layout for his writing prompts for the entire first quarter, for example), and what he doesn’t provide in the way of the entire year, he provides ideas and guidance to approach writing as a whole.

Gallagher has over 160 students so writing teachers cannot revel in his ideas yet claim there is not enough time or too many students. He writes books and teaches more students than many others. Thankfully, he provides strategies for dealing with the paper load, the time load, the revision load, and the editing load, as well as loads of other ideas, notably twenty pages of appedicies that provide handouts to implement.

If this doesn’t provide the impetus to pick up and read or purchase this book, consider some of his strategies: establish a consistent time for students to write (Gallagher seems to have his students write from the time they walk in until the moment they exit, as well as after they exit), write with your students, use real world examples for students to see how to write, give students choice in their writing and avoid contrived “fake writing,” teach students how to identify their purpose and audience and then write considering both, and use assessment to drive student writing (this isn’t data crunching necessarily, it is concrete strategies to respond to student writing, conference with students and improve student writing).

Finishing the book, I had two responses: read it again and use it everyday in the coming school year. Gallagher exudes enthusiasm and insight for teaching writing. Every chapter provides a litany of practical tools to implement in creating a writing program or enhancing a writing program. His principles are simple and his examples are poignant. Read Teaching Adolescent Writing if you want to improve as a teacher of writing and you want your students to grow as writers.