Ralph Fletcher with Jan Turbill, 2015
Turbill, J. Barton, G. & Brock, C. [eds] Teaching Writing in Today's Classrooms: Looking back to look forward, pp 4-50 published by ALEA
Ralph Fletcher is a well-known American writer of children’s books and teachers’ books on teaching of writing. In 2014 Ralph came to the ALEA/AATE national conference in Darwin to present the Donald Graves address. It was an inspiring one hour full of gems about the teaching of writing. To write up the address would be a book-in-itself. Thus, it was decided that Ralph and Jan would engage in a conversation about the teaching of writing, Ralph in his home in Portsmouth in the USA and Jan in Australia. This chapter is a result of the recorded conversation, written by Jan and edited by Ralph. It is full of excellent information, and teaching strategies from a writer and a man who spends endless hours with teachers and students in their classrooms teaching writing. In particular, Ralph focuses on the use of mentor texts and boy writers.
This chapter is one of 20 excellent chapters on the teaching of writing in the book published by ALEA. The book is available from ALEA.
We thank ALEA’s Publications Director, for granting permission for the Foundation for Learning and Literacy to include this article here.