Writing Your Way

As a student, Peter Stillman felt discouraged and alienated from the act of writing. As a teacher, he discovered his own students experiencing the same feelings. Frustrated by the lack of a text that would help students write about their world in a way that encouraged and rewarded them, he wrote Writing Your Way. Stillman believes that there isn't a student who, with the right encouragement, can't write and furthermore who, sooner or later, doesn't love doing it. By inviting students to write from their experiences and intuitions, and making the most of their willingness to put something of themselves on paper, Writing Your Way makes better, even eager, writers out of them all. Based on the idea that students have something to say and have within them the ability to write, this text helps students find their own voices. Stillman's approach is emphatically process oriented, stressing prewriting, revision, and peer group writing. Since learning to write requires continual practice, there are opportunities in each of the twenty-six chapters to write and discover the process that suits the individual best. Writing becomes an everyday act that can be gratifying in both personal and academic domains. The self-contained chapters are meaningful and helpful when read in any order; they can be assigned and used freely. Students and teachers can return to chapters that worked well, and experiment with new chapters out of order without worrying about missing a critical step. Writing Your Way was written for any secondary student, but is recommended especially for ninth and tenth graders.