Author Karyn Saemann discusses general writing topics, her own writing process, and gives some advice to students learning to write. Part of our Wisconsin Writes series of videos designed to help students and teachers observe how successful authors create their work.

Karyn Seamann, author of Electa Quinney and other books, demonstrates her research process and begins organizing sources for her second book about Indian boarding schools. Part of our Wisconsin Writes series of videos designed to help students and teachers observe how successful authors write.

TeachingBooks.net has a blog that includes monthly author posts.  These guest posts are written by a variety of authors and illustrators ranging from picture books to YA.  In the posts, the authors writing about their books and the writing process they go through while creating them.  They frequently include photographs of the work in progress to demonstrate to students their steps.  
This resource can be used to supplement an individual author study, to demonstrate the writing process in professional work or to simply expose students to new authors and their works.

Each spring Roosevelt fourth graders embrace the challenge of writing an essay for the Wisconsin Ag in the Classroom essay competition for 4th and 5th graders. It has become a tradition at our school and many older siblings recall writing the essay for their particular topic when they were in fourth grade!  We have covered topics from John Deere & maple syrup to soybeans and farmer’s markets.  This year we were excited to study Wisconsin’s fruits, specifically strawberries!The annual contest falls in the third trimester where we focus on Expository writing and completing a 5 paragraph essay with a simple bibliography.

Writing Commons aspires to be a community for writers, a creative learning space for students in courses that require college-level writing, a creative, interactive space for teachers to share resources and pedagogy. Our primary goal is to provide the resources and community students need to improve their writing, particularly students enrolled in courses that require college-level writing. As mentioned in 'About Us', we believe learning materials should be free for all students and teachers‰ part of the cultural commons. Hence, we provide free access to an award-winning, college textbook that was published by a major publisher and awarded the Distinguished Book Award by Computers and Composition: an International Journal.