50 Writing Lessons That Work!: Motivating Prompts and Easy Activities That Develop the Essentials of Strong Writing (Grades 4-8) Paperback – January 1, 1999

Excellent lessons to motivate and help young writers in putting their thoughts and ideas in writing.

If I ever run out of ideas or am stuck in a slump in my ELA class, I head straight over to this book and use the ideas in here. Of course, the lesson has to connect to my learning target, but it has been super helpful with ANY unit I'm utilizing inside my secondary ELA classroom. The lessons are, of course, adjusted to the majority of the learning abilities and/or grade levels in my classroom. It's like a "Bible" that I carry around with me in my teacher-bag.

I used this for a creative writing club as a basic reference. The information is concise and hits the major points that impact the readability of a writer's work!

I chose 5 stars for this purchase because it was exactly what it was advertised as, a valuable classroom asset, quick and easy to use. Great for second language learners and those behind 2 or more grades with skills. This book was $26 at two teacher resource stores near where I live and it was 10 to 12 $ cheaper through amazon.

I was disappointed to discover this book is more like 50 activities, not 50 lessons. I realized only after I ordered this book that it is a slim 64 pages. Each "lesson" is like an idea for a student writing assignment, although many of them are not particularly inspired. I tried to use this book with middle school students, but many of them complained that the assignments were cliche and forced them to write on prompts they had heard before (like write an autobiography, describe someone's personality in a paragraph, write about something that annoys you, write about the weather today, etc.). I felt that half of these prompts were things that as a teacher, I could easily come up with on my own. The other half are fine and good, but brief. For my purposes, this book could be condensed to a two-page list of creative writing / essay topics.At 9.99 for 64 pages, you are better off spending 19.99 on a 300 page book that will last beyond a few weeks, and do more than list off writing prompts.This book could be useful if you are teaching 4th-5th grade students, and like to have the structure of a book to guide you through getting the class excited about a single writing prompt. If you're a more creative type (and not a by-the-line, I read a cookbook for every detail type), you're better off giving yourself an hour to brainstorm a bunch of writing prompts, typing them up, and using your own ideas.

Great for school

This little book offers a lot of easy to use writing lesson suggestions. I'm currently tutoring 12 year old boys and have found this book to be quite valuable.

Not what I expected. Not interesting to my children or me. Too time consuming. Contains lessons, not prompts.