Reviewed
by Michelle Capen, NBCT
Whitnel Elementary
Lenoir, North Carolina

Description: This is an easy-to-read book for teachers of writing from
kindergarten through middle school. Fletcher provides personal
and professional observations to help teachers encourage and
promote writing with boys. His anecdotal style is entertaining
and is interspersed with samples from boy writers in different
genres and age groups.

Personal Reaction: I really enjoyed reading this book and I've
shared a number of Fletcher's tips with teachers at my elementary
school. Fletcher talks about allowing boys to include language
that is more graphic and silly than most teachers like to
use. One of the 3rd grade teachers at my school did a class
narrative and allowed the boys in her class to make the story
more physical and a little gross. The kids really loved seeing
really silly, cartoon-like themes being allowed in class.
The story was posted in the hallway and all the kids in the
3rd grade stopped to read it. It was the talk of the hall
for the whole week!

Fletcher talks about how writing is an activity that requires lots
of practice and a willingness to take criticism. Moving boys
away from emotional and personal story telling seemed to help
my students be more comfortable with the conferencing part
of the writing process. I was able to make some adjustments
to my conferencing style that seemed to really encourage some
of my boys to write. I allowed my students to use comic book
style framing to organize their rough drafts and used Dav
Pilkey's books as examples of writing for some of my lessons.