FROM THE DESK OF The Structured Writing Teacher

When I first started teaching, I didn’t really know how to teach writing. I knew it was important. I had some textbooks. I had a stack of construction paper and glitter.  And I had a lot of hope. So we made pop-up books and paper-plate characters. We turned in Tall Tales written on scrolls of receipt paper. We displayed stories with cotton balls and googly eyes. It was creative. It was fun. But it wasn’t teaching writing. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and no one had really shown me how. Why Was Writing So Hard to Teach? Part of the problem was that writing is invisible. You can’t point to it the way you can point to a math formula. There’s no clear-cut path. There’s no single right answer. I tried rubrics. I tried sentence starters. I tried grading checklists. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was guessing. And that my students were guessing, too. The bright ones thrived. The quiet ones hid. And the reluctant writers? They copied from the board or wrote ...

There was a time when my writing block was the most exhausting part of my day. I knew writing mattered. I knew students needed time to explore ideas, take risks, revise, and find their voice. I wanted my classroom to feel like a space where writers actually wrote . But no matter how hard I tried, it just… didn’t work. Some students barely wrote anything. Others scribbled five lines and said, “I’m done.” A few thrived—but even then, it was usually because they were natural writers to begin with. The rest were lost. And honestly? So was I. The Turning Point The shift didn’t happen overnight. It came after years of trying to make various writing programs “fit” my students—and failing. Then, I left the classroom to tour as a children’s book author. I worked with editors, publishers, and writing teams. I was immersed in what real writing looked like behind the scenes. And I kept thinking… Why don’t we teach our students to write the way professional writers actually work? I start...