MORE Writing and Reading Resources
We encourage you to look beyond Empowering Young Writers to find all the tools you need to guide your students’ writing. We have included links to a diverse range of resources for educators, parents, and guardians to help you better understand the craft of teaching writing and to expand learning opportunities with the young people in your life. Click on a category or scroll down to discover our curated list of recommended articles, websites, books, videos, and more.
Online Resources and Organizations
Articles About Writing
Articles About Reading
Articles About Socio-Economic Statistics
Books
Videos
Online Resources and Organizations
Writing Lesson Plans from The New York Times
Hundreds of free writing resources for teachers and students, including writing prompts.
Curricular Resources from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Thousands of curriculum units, written since 1978, serve as a treasure trove of ideas and procedures for teaching subjects in the humanities and in STEM fields in grades K-12.
826 Digital
Find writing prompts, lessons, projects, and more for every grade from the 826 Network, the largest youth writing network in the United States. Website includes extensive collections of curated content, such as writing prompts, lessons, projects, and more.
We Need Diverse Books
We Need Diverse Books™ is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. The group’s mission is to put more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all readers to fulfill their vision of creating a world where everyone can find themselves in the pages of a book. Discover programming and extensive resources for finding books featuring diverse characters on their website DiverseBooks.org.
Start with a Book
Start with a Book, a summer and out-of-school-time learning project from Reading Rockets, is designed to help kids strengthen their reading and writing skills and build background knowledge. The website includes 24 topics for reading, exploring, and learning about our world, where you will find great fiction and nonfiction books, hands-on activities, writing ideas, and kid-friendly websites and apps for each topic.
TeachersFirst: Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers
TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our robust search tools.
Elementary School Writing Apps and Websites by Common Sense Education
When ensuring kids write early and often, we prepare them to succeed across all subjects. Give your students a leg up with these great picks for elementary school-age kids that will foster writing and sharing.
National Writing Project
Every year National Writing Project teachers lead programs where teachers across the nation learn how to help youth research and form arguments, expand their learning beyond the classroom walls, and publish their writing about topics that matter to them.
Tips and Tools by the Writing Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Extensive guide to articles, worksheets, assignments, and even tips of how to write for particular fields of study.
Writing Prompts Teaching Tool by Scholastic
Ready-to-go writing prompts and lessons from Scholastic Teachables give students valuable practice to help them become strong writers.
11 Resources for Writing Teachers by the Write Practice
The Write Practice strives to convince their readers why learning to write better is important to them and their lives. Their method is to talk about the question “why?” a lot; they believe that if a student is convinced that what they’re learning is important to them, then they will always learn better. They also believe deeply in deliberate practice, and that’s why at the end of each lesson, they give students a chance to put what they’ve just learned to use immediately, encouraging them to share their work with other writers to get feedback.
National Council of Teachers of English
The National Council of Teachers of English is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.
ReadWriteThink.org
Since 2002, ReadWriteThink.org has provided literacy educators with access to an ever-growing collection of free educational materials. This includes hundreds of lesson plans, calendar resources, prints, and interactive tools. The site has consistently been one of the most information-rich literacy resources on the internet. Every lesson plan on ReadWriteThink has always been aligned to the IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts, showing how theory feeds into practice.
Resources for Teaching Writing by the University of Louisville Writing Center
Teaching students to write effectively, across the many disciplines of the university, is an ongoing challenge for instructors. This website offers some brief discussions and useful links addressing some of the central concerns these educators hear from their faculty colleagues about teaching writing in their courses.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
The online writing lab offers global support through online reference materials and services for creating citations, cover letters, major-specific writing help, and general writing advice.
The Children’s Poetry Archive
Poetry doesn’t just live in books—it lives in the sounds that words make. When we read poems out loud we breathe life into them and we can picture them in our imagination. The Children’s Poetry Archive is a place where you can listen to poems read out loud. This site features poems read by the poets who wrote them, as well as poems recorded by others. Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Poetry Foundation
Extensive online resource of poems, poets, and poetry events provided by the Poetry Foundation, which recognizes the power of words to transform lives and works to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry. Find and explore poems by subject and more.
The Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library’s mission is to support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people.
The Society for Writing and Illustrating Books for Children
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is the global community for children’s book creators, providing resources, professional networking, and community-building opportunities that support writers, illustrators, and translators throughout their careers.
Creative Writing Resources by TeacherVision
Worksheets, lesson plans, graphic organizers, reference sheets, and more created by the pros at TeacherVision. Note: Some content is free, but other portions require a fee.
NoRedInk Writing and Grammar Curriculum
NoRedInk simplifies the process of building strong writers and critical thinkers in Grades 3–12. This writing platform facilitates effective instruction by helping teachers engage students through modeling, scaffolding, practice, and feedback. Note: Some content is free, but other portions require a fee.
Articles About Writing
“How to Make Students Care About Writing”
by Kristina Rizga in The Atlantic, 8 August 2018.
Pirette McKamey, a veteran English teacher, spent 30 years investigating what helps young people to view themselves as writers.
“The Best Writing Teachers Are Writers Themselves”
by Cindy O’Donnell-Allen (chair of the English education program at Colorado State University) in The Atlantic, 26 September 2012.
It takes more than a good grasp of grammar to teach students the true power of the written word.
“Why Use a Dictionary in the Age of Internet Search?” by Rachel del Valle in The New York Times, 13 September 2021.
Dictionaries reward you for paying attention, both to the things you consume and to your own curiosity.
“The Best Ways for Students to Become Writers” by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post
“Learning to Read and Write: What Research Reveals” by the National Association for the Education of Young Children on ReadingRockets.org
“How Should We Combine Reading and Writing” by Timothy Shanahan on ReadingRockets.org
“Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading” by Kelly N. Tracy, PhD on LiteracyWorldwide.org
“Reading and Writing for Understanding” by Sarah Mackie on the Harvard Graduate School of Education Usable Knowledge Website
“The Best Advice for Writers? Read” on The Guardian Books Blog
“5 Insights on Writing About Challenging Topics With Children in Age-Friendly Ways (and Why It’s Important To Do So)” by Patty Mechael on WritersDigest.com
“30 Ideas for Teaching Writing” from the National Writing Project
This resource provides succinct, practice-based help for teaching writing and is a first-place Distinguished Achievement Award winner from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP).
Articles About Reading
“Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?” by in The New York Times, 21 June 2023.
Essay. Book bans, chatbots, pedagogical warfare: What it means to read has become a minefield.
“What the New, Low Test Scores for 13-Year-Olds Say About U.S. Education Now” by Dana Goldstein in The New York Times, 21 June 2023. The math and reading performance of 13-year-olds in the United States has hit the lowest level in decades, according to test scores released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold-standard federal exam. The last time math performance was this low for 13-year-olds was in 1990. In reading, 2004.
“Recommended Reading for Middle-Grade Students” by Annisha Jeffries
List of recommended books organized by genre and created expressly for Empowering Young Writers.
Articles About Socio-Economic Statistics
“Child population by Race and Ethnicity in United States” in the Kids Count Data Center by the Annie E. Casey Foundation
“2023 State of America’s Children® Report: Child Poverty” on the Website of the Children’s Defense Fund
One in six children under five (3 million children) in America were poor in 2023, the highest rate of any age group.
“Concentration of Public School Students Eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch”
Annual Report by the National Center for Educational Statistics
In fall 2021, the percentage of students who attended high-poverty schools was highest for Hispanic students (38 percent), followed by Black students (37 percent), American Indian/Alaska Native students (30 percent), and Pacific Islander students (23 percent). This percentage was lowest for White students (7 percent), Asian students (13 percent), and students of Two or more races (15 percent).
Books
Following is an extensive list of books organized by topic, including how to teach writing to young people, general recommendations for writing well, how to write books for young people, and more. Books are listed in alphabetical order by title within each category.
Books to Help Teach Young People How to Write
The following books are helpful for teaching elementary and middle school students.
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem by Jack Prelutsky (Greenwillow Books, 2008). This book is written for kids, but you should also have a copy!
Poem Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry by Myra Cohn Livingston (HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1991)
From Reader to Writer: Teaching Writing Through Classic Children’s Books by Sarah Ellis (Groundwood Books, 2000)
The Write Thing: Kwame Alexander Engages Students in Writing Workshop (And You Can Too!) by Kwame Alexander (Shell Education, 2019)
Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories by Jack Gantos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017). This book is written for kids, but you might also want to have a copy!
The following book is helpful for teaching high school students:
Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann (Random House, 2017). Learn more here.
Books About Writing and Creativity
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (Pantheon Books, 1994)
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (Macmillan, 1949)
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (Scribner, New Edition 2020)
A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry by Mary Oliver (Harcourt Brace, 1994)
On Poetry and Craft by Theodore Roethke (Copper Canyon Press, 1965)
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron (Penguin Random House, 1998)
Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse by Mary Oliver (Houghton Mifflin, 1998)
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin (The Eighth Mountain Press, 1998)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Scribner, 2000).
On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (Harper and Row, 1980)
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (Shambhala Publications,1986)
Books About Teaching and Creativity
Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change by Maxine Greene (Jossey-Bass, 1995)
The Shape of Content by Ben Shahn (Harvard University Press, 1957)
Books and Compilations About Reading and Writing by Children’s Book Creators and Scholars
The following books dive into reading and writing topics straight from children’s book creators and scholars. Several contain collected essays and speeches.
Barking With the Big Dogs: On Writing and Reading Books for Children by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018)
Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy, compiled and edited by Leonard S. Marcus (Candlewick Press, 2009)
Gates of Excellence: On Reading and Writing for Children by Katherine Paterson (E.P. Dutton, 1981)
Innocence & Experience: Essays & Conversations on Children’s Literature, compiled and edited by Barbara Harrison and Gregory Maguire (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1987)
The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing for Children by Katherine Paterson (Dutton Children’s Books, 1981)
Origins of Story: On Writing for Children, edited by Barbara Harrison and Gregory Maguire (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999)
Pictured Worlds: Masterpieces of Children’s Book Art by 101 Essential Illustrators from Around the World by Leonard S. Marcus (Abrams Books, 2023)
A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing for Children by Katherine Paterson (Plume Books, Reprint Edition 1995)
Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators by Leonard Marcus (Candlewick Press, 2013)
The Spying Heart: More Thoughts on Reading and Writing Books for Children by Katherine Paterson (E.P. Dutton, 1989)
TalkTalk: A Children’s Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups by E.L. Konigsburg (Atheneum, 1995)
Books on Writing for Children
The Art of Writing for Children: Skills and Techniques of the Craft by Connie C. Epstein (Archon Books,1991)
How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books by Uri Shulevitz (Watson-Guptill, 1985)
Writing for Children and Teenagers by Lee Wyndham, revised by Arnold Madison (Writers Digest Books, 1989)
Writing Picture Books Revised and Expanded Edition: A Hands-On Guide From Story Creation to Publication by Ann Whitford Paul (Writer’s Digest Books, 2018)
The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance Publications
The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, a progressive story game played by M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil Ering, Jack Gantos, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press, 2011). Learn more and discover all our Exquisite Corpse education resources here.
Our White House: Looking Out, Looking In, an award-winning anthology created by 108 renowned authors and illustrators and the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, with an introduction by David McCullough (Candlewick Press, 2008). Learn more on the book’s complementary education website: OurWhiteHouse.org.
Videos
Storyline Online
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Daytime Emmy®-nominated and award-winning children’s literacy website, Storyline Online® streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson, Viola Davis, Terry Crews, Connie Britton, John Lithgow, Jennifer Garner, Betty White, and dozens more.
“Write. Right. Rite.,” a “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story” Video Series
“Write. Right. Rite.” is meant to be an entertaining and inventive way to engage with the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason Reynolds. According to Reynolds, the “Write. Right. Rite.” is all about learning the ritual of “authentic”—not to be confused with “correct” or “exact”—expression. Throughout the series, Reynolds shares his passion for storytelling while discussing topics like creativity, connection, and imagination. At the end of each video, Reynolds shares a prompt that encourages young people to work toward a specific idea.
Writing Tips from Kate DiCamillo on Candlewick.com
Join two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo as she offers writing tips and advice. Part 1 advises writers that now is the perfect time to work on the story you’ve always wanted to write! More than 12 videos are included.