Book Review: Just Write, here's how!
Just Write, Here’s How is a writing “how-to” guide written by revered young adult novelist Walter Dean Myers. Myers uses this book to speak directly to young adults who may be struggling with the writing process, but it is also a great tool for any teacher who may be facing the challenge of teaching writing to these same struggling students. Myers prides himself on his ability to be able to speak to students and help them to figure out the type of writers that they are. Myers writes this informational text from a first person point of view about his own writing process and how teaches students how they can apply his methods to their own writing. Myers includes his own hand written examples of his writing processes, as well as personal stories about his own personal experiences and the influences that they have had on his writing. This book contains Myers box system for organizing a written piece of work. Myers shows step by step how to use this system and then also included his own use of the box system. Myers expresses his belief that writing is supposed to be a natural and individual experience. He believes that the most important part is to just start writing. Myers also includes in this book the thought process on a project between Myers and a 15-year-old co-writer on their published novel. This book is organized by the order of the writing process; with the inclusion of the Myers own words of advice. Myers writes this book as a way to help both students and the people that teach them. It is almost written as if it could be considered Myers own career autobiography because he includes a lot of personal stories that added to his writing. This book was written to help students understand what makes up a writer and how they can help reveal the writer within themselves.
This book is a great resource for both students and teachers. The greatest asset of this book is the fact that it is as if the students have someone speaking directly to them. Further more, this person is an author of books, so he knows what he is talking about. Walter Dean Myers is not a teacher and he is not one of their parents trying to teach these kids how to write, he is an actual author; writing is his career,which adds some validity to the teachings. This tool is also great because it is written in an easy to understand way that students can read. But, this is not just a tool for students, teachers can also benefit from this text. Myers provides activities, examples, and methods for getting students to write and teaching them how. This guide gives step-by-step instruction on how to follow Myers box method for organizing student writing. Even if the teacher does not like Myers exact methods they can be easily modified to fit the teacher's desire and the classroom needs. Although this guide does provide a lot of useful information about how to teach writing, Myers goes more into detail about his personal stories more so than the actual technical steps of writing. These moments of personal inclusions are extremely useful because it reveals how necessary personal experiences are to an authors work and it gives the readers the opportunity to learn about the reason behind some of Myers best works, but it lacks attention that needs to be paid to the writing process. Other than these ideas, this book is a great tool for the English classroom, especially for students who are struggling writers. Overall I would suggest that this would be a great tool for teachers to include as a resource for their composition lesson plans and as a tool to help students to become the best writers that they can be.
This book is a great resource for both students and teachers. The greatest asset of this book is the fact that it is as if the students have someone speaking directly to them. Further more, this person is an author of books, so he knows what he is talking about. Walter Dean Myers is not a teacher and he is not one of their parents trying to teach these kids how to write, he is an actual author; writing is his career,which adds some validity to the teachings. This tool is also great because it is written in an easy to understand way that students can read. But, this is not just a tool for students, teachers can also benefit from this text. Myers provides activities, examples, and methods for getting students to write and teaching them how. This guide gives step-by-step instruction on how to follow Myers box method for organizing student writing. Even if the teacher does not like Myers exact methods they can be easily modified to fit the teacher's desire and the classroom needs. Although this guide does provide a lot of useful information about how to teach writing, Myers goes more into detail about his personal stories more so than the actual technical steps of writing. These moments of personal inclusions are extremely useful because it reveals how necessary personal experiences are to an authors work and it gives the readers the opportunity to learn about the reason behind some of Myers best works, but it lacks attention that needs to be paid to the writing process. Other than these ideas, this book is a great tool for the English classroom, especially for students who are struggling writers. Overall I would suggest that this would be a great tool for teachers to include as a resource for their composition lesson plans and as a tool to help students to become the best writers that they can be.