Slice of Life Day 26: Good Writers Read

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

— Stephen King

Reading and writing just go together. If you want to be a good writer: read.  If you want to be a good reader: write. I remember hearing first grade teachers say: "FIrst graders can't write." Then we started doing writer's workshop. All of a sudden, not only could first graders write, they even became better readers!

One of my favorite units of study is Authors as Mentors. In that unit the students ultimately find their own mentor writers. After studying various authors all year and learning about their "fingerprints" on their writing, those young writers began modeling their craft from those writers.

Looking back over the images of past high stack tests I can tell who those writers had as their mentors. It is awesome to be able to know who those writers had as their writing teachers through the year.

So again, if you want to become a good writer....READ!!!!