Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools, Revised Edition

"Because Writing Matters has sweeping appeal to teachers, administrators, and parents alike. It is full of pragmatic tools to increase both the quantity and the quality of writing in schools. Not haughty or esoteric, it is relevant, accessible and, above all, a practical guidebook that presents ways by which writing within the educational landscape can be improved."
—Aiken Essays in Education

"I just finished a fantastic book about writing. In about 120 pages, the authors synthesize years of insights into writing, instruction, professional development, and assessment…I felt like I learned something new with each page, or found on each page some important new validation for what I already do in my own classroom."
—Jim Burke, Burlington High Scholl, California, CATEnet

"You would have to read hundreds of books and articles to acquire knowledge comparable to what you can get by reading this slim but full packed volume developed by the National Writing Project and written by a journalist and writing teacher."
—AP Central

"Once I started reading, I could not put the book down until I had finished. My copy of Because Writing Matters is riddled with sticky notes to myself about how I can enhance my own efforts to bring writing and the teaching of writing to the foreground."
—Voices from the Middle

"For the first time, in a reader-friendly format, those strategies of successful school writing programs have been documented in a new book titled Because Writing Matters."
—Town Talk Newspapers

"Timely and persuasive, Because Writing Matters offers classroom teachers, administrators, and those who work with pre-service teachers more than encouragement; it provides a ‘so what’ plus the ‘how to’ necessary to make real changes in the ways writing is taught and assessed. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the way relevant information is succinctly presented.
—English Journal

"If you want or need to know more about teaching writing, the bibliography is a comprehensive source. The great writing teachers and well-known researchers listed here have built a knowledge base for a discipline many of us have taken for granted."
—English Leadership Quarterly

"The NWP and Nagin have written a concise, well-organized primer that introduces school leaders to writing as a thinking and learning tool."
—Bryn Mawr/Haverford College Journal of Teacher Education