Right-Answer Writing: An All-in-One Resource to Help Students Craft Better Responses

We know that all writing follows some kind of structure. But when there's a Right Answer involved, those structures tighten - especially in testing situations, where someone else constructs the prompts and the answers. This narrows writing and offers students less freedom. Fortunately, Right-Answer Writing provides writers a direct path from the prompt to an accurate, correct response, enabling them to complete each task with success and confidence.

Right-Answer Writing includes four exciting resources - three slim, practical handbooks and a CD. Beginning with the first handbook, The Process and the Prompt, Ardith Davis Cole describes Right-Answer Protocol, a simple, powerful, step-by-step procedure for constructing responses to prompts of any sort. Cole thoroughly describes prompts, outlining the three things every student and teacher should know about them, then takes you through the Right-Answer process. From a single, unified paragraph to a multiple-paragraph response, students will have a reliable procedure for writing that delivers high-quality answers to test prompts.

Cole expands on the Right-Answer Protocol by applying it to two other kinds of writing tasks found in school and the real world. In The Persuasive Essay she shows how the Right-Answer structure can help students conceptualize this genre in new and powerful ways. Then in the final book, The Research Paper, Cole offers smart advice for using the Right-Answer method within a research protocol to produce better papers and virtually eliminate copying and plagarism.

In addition, the Right-Answer Writing CD supports each volume by providing everything you need to teach Cole's response protocol, which makes it a terrific classroom or staff-development tool. Merely insert the CD and print or project sequenced PowerPoint slides, charts, samples of text, student writing, lesson plans, and websites. It's invaluable for both busy teachers and staff developers.

What's more, you can weave this package into your existing curriculum. So give your students the ability to respond quickly and accurately to any prompt. Show them important strategies that will support smart thinking and competent writing throughout their academic and real-world lives. Use Right-Answer Writing when the stakes are high - or any time the Right Answer is needed.

Ardith Davis Cole is a teacher, author, and literacy consultant with 30 years of public school experience. Her work focuses on collaborative methods. "Getting more dialogue into our classrooms and schools is a key to success." she explains, "I believe that I write and speak from the heart and mind of a teacher. I've spent so many wonderful years in the classroom. I've taught students of all ages and worked alongside teachers and kids as a literacy coach." She has also shared her methods and supported educators in other ways--as a university adjunct, an officer in professional literacy organizations, as well as, an independent literacy consultant for schools and organizations throughout North America and abroad. Several professional communities have recognized her dedication by honoring her with local, state and national awards, including the University of Buffalo's Outstanding Alumni Award. She also holds a Ph. D. in Reading from the University of Buffalo. Many have heard her celebrate: "I love being a teacher!" That love has inspired several books and a number of articles (see the following).

To learn more about Ardith Davis Cole and her work please visit www.ardithcole.com as well as her YouTube channel.

Books by Ardith Davis Cole:

• Better Answers: Written Performance that Looks Good and Sounds Smart (2nd ed.) Stenhouse 2009
• Right-Answer Writing: The Process and the Prompt, Heinemann 2007
• Knee-to-Knee, Eye-to-Eye: Circling in on Comprehension, Heinemann 2003
• When Reading Begins: The Teacher's Role in Decoding, Comprehension, and Fluency, Heinemann 2004
• Better Answers: Written Performance that Looks Good and Sounds Smart, Stenhouse 2002
• Literacy Activities for Building Classroom Communities, Pippin Publishing 1998

Articles by Ardith Davis Cole:

• "It's the Teacher, Not the Program," Commentary in Education Week Commentary, 2003
• "Scaffolding beginning readers: Micro and macro cues teachers use during student oral reading," The Reading Teacher, February 2008
• "Writing: An Unexamined Gatekeeper," Education Week Commentary, March 2007
• "Essays on Tests: Making Writing the 'Gatekeeper' of Content Areas," Education Week Commentary, January 2002
• "The Phonics Network: A Channel for Concern," Language and Literacy Spectrum, September 1998
• "What Do You Notice?" Reading Teacher, January 1989