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Writing for an Audience Writing for An Audience Video Series (26x30") (no web site available) A video instructional series on English composition for college and high school classrooms and adult learners; 26 half-hour video programs and coordinated books This video series introduces basic principles and strategies for communicating in writing to a variety of audiences and improving general composition skills. Throughout the series, students will meet a wide array of professionals whose work involves writing — not only authors, journalists, and teachers, but also musicians, judges, nurses, engineers, scientists, and athletes — who will discuss how they write with their specific audiences in mind. This series can also be used as a resource for teacher professional development. Produced by Berkow & Berkow, 2001. 1. School Writing/Real World
This program introduces the key concepts covered in the telecourse and shows how writing in the classroom relates to writing in the "real world." Students meet those who appear throughout the course, including authors, educators, and professionals in all fields who use writing on the job, and also first-year writing students from colleges and universities across the country. The program touches on many of the issues in the "Thinking/Writing Strategies" sequence. 2. Finding Something To Say
This program introduces the topics covered in the Writing Process sequence — invention, drafting, and revision — with the most basic English composition problem: How does a writer start "inventing" ideas? Students learn to grapple with the intimidating process of selecting a topic to write about as well as the challenge of finding a unique angle when an instructor or boss selects the topic. 3. Description
Students, teachers, and writers share their observations on what makes good description and offer tips to help students develop strong and accurate description skills. Featured writing examples include a police officer’s arrest report, a music critic’s magazine story, and scene-setting and character development in the work of novelists Sue Grafton, Tom Robbins, and Joseph Wambaugh. 4. Reading As a Writer
English instructors, including CCC Journal editor Joe Harris, explain how reading is part of the writing process. Students and writers — such as novelist Ernest J. Gaines and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson — describe how they translate their joy of reading into better writing. Students also learn to move from reading for pleasure to deciphering academic texts. 5. Narrative Writing
This program shows the relationships among narrative writing, personal writing, and academic writing. Science fiction author William Gibson, mystery writer John Morgan Wilson, and novelist Charles Johnson present students with tips for telling a good story. 6. Voice
Writers choose their language and tone depending on the audience. In this program, students, teachers, and writers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Aregood and novelist David Guterson, dissect both the esoteric and mechanical aspects of creating a writer’s voice. 7. Process Analysis
This program provides examples of "process analysis/how-to" writing in action, from a marine biology student describing how to reproduce a scientific experiment, to football coach Bill Walsh explaining a lineman’s technique, to Popular Woodworking magazine editor Steve Shanesy showing how to stain a walnut table. 8. Revision
This program explores the process of macro-revision and offers a variety of strategies to help the student writer revise. Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter David Mills (NYPD Blue and ER) and humorist/grammar expert Dave Barry share their views about and techniques for revision. 9. Writing Under Pressure
The skills learned in an English composition course can be applied in timed-writing assignments for other courses or writing documents under deadline on the job. Students learn how to adapt the processes of invention, drafting, and revision and find links between rhetorical strategies and real-life writing challenges in these high-pressure situations. 10. Freewriting and Generating
This program looks at ways to generate ideas and overcome writer’s block, with advice from a variety of people including English composition expert Dr. Peter Elbow (University of Massachusetts), Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt, keyboardist/lyricist Thomas Dolby, and comic actor Kevin Dorff of the Second City comedy troupe. 11. Computers in Composition
A variety of writers and teachers ranging from Chip Bayers of HotWired magazine to Cynthia Selfe of Michigan Technical University discuss how computers are changing the way we read, research, organize, draft, and revise our written documents. The program also looks at how students in a distance-learning environment carry out collaborative writing. 12. Organizing Devices
This program explores different prewriting strategies including outlining, clustering, and listing as well as organization at the thesis, topic sentence, and paragraph levels. Writers and teachers — including humorist Tom Bodett, composition instructor John Lovas, and screenwriter Peter Farrelly (co-creator of the film There’s Something About Mary) — discuss a variety of methods for organizing text. 13. Comparison and Contrast
Writers may find comparison and contrast to be helpful during the invention and drafting stages. A musicologist, a marine biologist, and a police officer show how these strategies — combined with critical thinking, persuasive writing, and narrative writing — work well in a variety of contexts. 14. Peer Feedback
Students, teachers, and professional writers demonstrate how the revision process often starts out — and sometimes works best — in a group setting. A federal judge and her clerks, a group of students, and a team of journalists illustrate how the whole can be greater than the sum of its writers. 15. Definition
Definition is used in a variety of writing contexts, from "defining yourself in the world" to technical definitions used in engineering or science courses. Definition is examined as an aspect of all other writing tasks: in argument, process analysis, and narrative writing, and in invention, drafting, and revision. Film producer Michael Moore and radio host Rush Limbaugh spar about the definition of "welfare." 16. Collaborative Writing
This program shows how people whose work involves writing can learn, research, draft, and revise as a team — creating better documents in the process. Instructors, students, and professionals, including writers and actors from the television series MAD TV and a pair of science fiction novelists, share strategies for successful collaboration. 17. Persuasion
In this program, students study the art of persuasion and how it is similar to and different from formal academic argument. Political activists, journalists, and advertising executives discuss techniques for persuading and influencing people to change their actions or views. Featured are author and "culture jammer" Kalle Lasn of Adbusters magazine and Jeff Goodby, originator of the "Got Milk?" ad campaign. 18. Reading As a Thinker
In this program, students explore ways to read critically. They’ll learn to read and understand challenging college textbooks, no matter what the subject; to "own" the words in a dense text by challenging some of the author’s ideas and agreeing with others; and to summarize and paraphrase an author’s words, and then restate new ideas synthesized from those words. 19. Argument
The formal argument is the basis for most academic assignments, including research papers. Students learn about the process of writing a simple statement (a main-claim, thesis, hypothesis, or focus sentence) and supporting it with evidence. Featured writers and academics include political science instructor George Wright (California State University) and composition instructor Betsy Klimasmith (University of Washington). 20. Quotes and Citations
This program presents students with skills to properly paraphrase, quote, and use MLA or APA citations in academic work and other writing. People as diverse as Federal Judge Helen Gillmor, writer/musician David Ellefson (Megadeth), and English composition instructor Thomas Fox (California State University, Chico) examine ways to find the balance between unethically "borrowing" another person’s words and artfully incorporating another writer’s words into your own work. 21. Research
Librarians and instructors offer advice on research issues, such as how to evaluate the validity of evidence gained from the popular press, peer-reviewed academic journals, or the Internet. Students learn how to use research during each stage of the writing process, and filmmaker Michael Moore and novelist Tom Robbins note the value of research beyond school. 22. Editing: Sentences
This program helps students correct their own writing weaknesses, with a special emphasis on sentence structure problems. Students learn to identify and correct misplaced modifiers, comma splices, sentence fragments, nonparallel constructions, and other errors that can make otherwise coherent writing confusing. Author Frank McCourt, Geoffrey Philp (Miami Dade College), and Teresa Redd (Howard University) are among those who offer instruction. 23. Critical Thinking
Students and instructors contemplate the concept of "critical thinking," examining how it affects the relationship among students, their textbooks, and their teachers as well as its importance in good reading and writing. Students learn to recognize logical fallacies (with the help of Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh), "read" a variety of situations critically, and apply the process to writing. 24. Editing: Word Usage
In this program, students learn to recognize and correct errors in word choice, such as pronoun-antecedent disagreement, subject-verb disagreement, and homonym confusions. Featured teachers and writers include Sue Grafton, Betsy Klimasmith, Santi Buscemi, and humorist/grammar expert Dave Barry. 25. Writing Across the Disciplines
On a college campus, different departments emphasize different writing styles. This program highlights a variety of ways students can apply the writing processes and rhetorical strategies learned in an English composition course to situations across the curriculum, effectively summarizing the entire telecourse. 26. Editing: Mechanics
This program helps students proofread for problems with language mechanics. Students learn the importance of correcting mistakes that could ruin the credibility of a paper and ways to identify punctuation errors. Also view programs on demand at the Annenberg Web site or on the Annenberg Channel Visit www.learner.org or call 1-800-LEARNER When on the Annenberg web site,  If you want to enter the world of writing and publishing in the digital age download a free trial of DeskTop Author and go to Publish and Sell Your E-book. The following videos, also available for viewing online free on the Annenberg site, should be of interest to writers of fiction, scripts, poetry who use multicultural, ethnic, or regional themes. Multicultural Literature 2 Multicultural Literature 2 Video Series (8x60") Multicultural Literature 2 Web Site Multicultural Literature introduces teachers to ethnically diverse American writers and offers dynamic instructional strategies and resources to make works meaningful for students. This workshop includes eight one-hour videos in which teachers model effective approaches — based on reader response, critical inquiry, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy — for using multicultural works in the classroom. In units that unfold over time, they also demonstrate activities and practices that engage students in critical discussions of race, class, and social justice, and empower them to take action for change. The featured teachers, along with leading educators, provide reflection and commentary throughout the programs. Authors share information on their works and about their lives through interviews and classroom visits. A robust Web site extends the video content with author biographies, synopses of the works, information on how to implement the teaching strategies, summaries of the video lessons, student work samples, resource materials, and annotated bibliographies. A downloadable guide includes short works of literature featured in the workshop, along with discussion questions, activities, and weekly assignments, to engage teachers in professional development and learning experiences similar to those they might provide in their own classrooms.
Produced by Thirteen/WNET, New York. 2005. Workshop 1: Engagement and Dialogue: Julia Alvarez, James McBride, Lensey Namioka, and more
In New York City, Carol O'Donnell and her students explore themes of multiple worlds and dual identities. They read poetry by Diana Chang and Naomi Shihab Nye, the novel The Color of Water by James McBride, essays and short stories by Gish Jen, Khoi Luu, Lensey Namioka, and Julia Alvarez, and a monologue by Tina Lee. Through a series of innovative drama, role-playing, and writing activities, students examine the social and cultural experiences of the characters, and reflect on their own definitions and experiences of identity. Workshop 2: Engagement and Dialogue: Judith Ortiz Cofer and Nikki Grimes
The workshop begins with a profile of the writer Judith Ortiz Cofer and then moves to Vista, California, where Akiko Morimoto and her students read short stories from Cofer's collection, An Island Like You. They respond personally to the works, examine the author's use of figurative language, and then make intertextual connections with books they've read throughout the school year. In a culminating project, students create their own visual symbols to represent the characters and events in the text. Students then explore poems from Nikki Grimes's Bronx Masquerade and examine the writer's craft. Grimes visits the classroom, answers questions about her work, and attends an after-school reading of student poetry. Workshop 3: Research and Discovery: Shirley Sterling and Laura Tohe
At the Skokomish reservation in Washington state, Sally Brownfield and her students study and connect with the literature and issues related to the Native American boarding school program through community involvement and self-examination. Students use Shirley Sterling's novel My Name Is Seepeetza and the poetry of Laura Tohe as the lenses through which they explore topics of their choosing. The class visits the Skokomish Tribal Center to interview tribal elders about the impact of the residential boarding program on the community. Author Shirley Sterling visits the class and answers student questions related to her novel, her life, and their personal research topics. Students then decide how to make their learning public. Workshop 4: Research and Discovery: Edwidge Danticat, An Na, Laurence Yep, and more
In Clayton, Missouri, Kathryn Mitchell Pierce's students read works that explore issues of historical and contemporary immigration. Pierce uses multicultural picture books to introduce students to a wide range of perspectives and to set the stage for their novel study. In literature groups, students discuss novels by Edwidge Danticat, Laurence Yep, Walter Dean Myers, Pam Munoz-Ryan, and An Na. In culminating presentations, students synthesize themes and pose thought-provoking questions that invite others to examine these novels in new ways. This workshop features author profiles of Laurence Yep and Edwidge Danticat. Workshop 5: Historical and Cultural Context: Christopher Paul Curtis
Laina Jones and her students in Dorchester, Massachusetts, explore The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Jones uses non-fiction, documentary film, and historical photographs to contextualize the events in the novel and the Civil Rights movement. The students make deep connections to the literature through drama, poetry, and creative writing activities. Curtis visits the classroom, addresses questions, and leads students in a writing workshop. The unit culminates with a service learning project in which students create children’s books about the Civil Rights movement and share them with elementary school children. Workshop 6: Historical and Cultural Context: Langston Hughes and Christopher Moore
Stanlee Brimberg and his students in New York City study the important contributions of African Americans to the United States and the recent discovery of the African Burial Ground in Manhattan through factual texts, video, art, photography, and poetry. The students interview writer, historian, and documentary filmmaker Christopher Moore to learn more about the everyday experiences of African slaves in early New York. They examine the works of Langston Hughes, and then — drawing on all of the texts — they write their own poetry and engage in peer review. As a culminating activity, the students take a field trip to the African Burial Ground Memorial, and then design their own postage stamps to commemorate the site. Workshop 7: Social Justice and Action: Alma Flor Ada, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Paul Yee
Laura Alvarez and her students in Oakland, California, examine different perspectives and experiences of immigrants, and then formulate and defend positions on issues with which they connect personally. They examine works including My Name Is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ada, Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, and Tales From Gold Mountain by Paul Yee to compare characters’ hopes, expectations, and actual experiences upon arriving in the United States. Students conduct research, including interviews with family members and nonfiction readings. Dr. Alma Flor Ada visits the classroom, answers questions about her novel, and facilitates discussion about social justice and taking action for change. As a culminating project, students write and revise persuasive letters to raise public awareness about the issues they’ve examined. Workshop 8: Social Justice and Action: Joseph Bruchac and Francisco Jiménez
This workshop begins with profiles of the featured authors, and then moves on to Chicago, Illinois where Lisa Espinosa's students explore themes of representation through literature, documentary film, photography, and music. Students look critically at past and current media depictions of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, and examine ways in which artists and writers from within those cultural groups, including Joseph Bruchac and Francisco Jimenez, represent themselves. The students analyze the individual works, make comparisons across texts, and make connections to their own lives. In a culminating project, students represent their own experience, using black-and-white photography and essays as social commentary. Teachers, family, and community members join together at a local coffeehouse for an exhibit of the students' work. If you are interested in the topics and writers covered above, additional free online videos on multicultural literature can be found at Writing Craft .  Writing Fiction is one of the most widely used and respected books on writing fiction. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, Writing Fiction guides the writer from first inspiration to final revision. Supported by an abundance exercises, this guide/anthology explores and integrates the elements of fiction while offering practical techniques and concrete examples. A focus on the writing process in its entirety provides a comprehensive guide to writing fiction, approaching distinct elements in separate chapters while building on what has been covered earlier. Topics include free-writing to revision, plot, style, characterization, dialogue, atmosphere, imagery, and point of view. An anthology of diverse and contemporary short stories followed by suggestions for discussion and writing exercises illustrates concepts while offering variety in pacing and exposure to short stories. The book also discusses key issues including writing workshops, using autobiography as a basis for fiction, using action in stories, using dialogue, and maintaining point of view. The sixth edition features more short short stories than previous editions and includes quotation boxes that offer advice and inspirational words from established writers on a wide range of topics such as writing from experience, story structure, openings and endings, and revision.
  
Check Alibris for similar book on Middle Ages. Books like these are very helpful for writing history or historical fiction. If you want to enter the world of writing and publishing in the digital age download a free trial of DeskTop Author and go to Publish and Sell Your E-book. | | SOFTWARE 
BOOKS Inspiration & Motivation Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Language & Reference  
  
 
 
Improve Your Writing Skills Non-Fiction  
Fiction 
  
 
 
 
 
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