Putting it in Writing (Scholastic Guides Series, by Steve Otfinoski)
I recently found a book that my parents had given me in 5th grade to encourage me in writing. This book is accessible and extremely practical for teaching writing, and I recommend it for homeschool parents and teachers of grades 3-7. The layout and vocabulary make is extremely accessible for students to use the book themselves or to make photocopies. It is most useful for teaching practically any type of letter, formal and informal, and has a lot of good examples. While I teach writing to juniors and seniors in high school, I am going to adapt some of the sections in this book, as many of the topics are things that kids and teenagers are no longer taught to do by their families. For instance, Putting it in Writing goes through how to write to someone who has just had a family member die (another section for is for responding to the death of pets), how to write a thank you note to someone who has given you money, how to complain to a company, how to ask for information, how to write to someone who has moved away, etc. I plan to teach some of these so my students can both know how to do some of these formal types of writing and to help them know what types of things to say in more difficult situations. It is has reminded me that it is worth teaching these more practical forms of writing, as they give us words and structures for different things that happen in life.
