Anne is a former middle and high school teacher, and a professor at the University of Washington. Currently she is a professor at the University of Michigan. At the University of Washington, she founded and directed the Puget Sound Writing Program, where she directed an NEH-sponsored program on writing across the curriculum, from which Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn Across the Disciplines (NCTE 1985) emerged. Other books she co-authored include Writing on Demand: Best Practices and Strategies For Success (Christenbury and Sassi), the Student Guide to Writing on Demand, and more recently Taking Initiative on Writing: A Guide for Instructional Leaders (co-authored with Hannah Dickenson, Stephanie Moody, and Melinda McBee Orzulak), which offers strategies for developing school-wide programs of writing instruction. She is editor of the NCTE book series Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards, which reinforces a focus on student learning by demonstrating ways of addressing the Common Core State Standards while also adhering to NCTE principles of effective teaching. The series consists of four books: K-2; 3-5; 6-8; 9-12. She is an NCTE past president and past chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.
View Anne Ruggles Gere's Resume/Vita, Publications and Workshops.
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Level: 6-12
Supporting Students in a Time of Common Core State Standards
This workshop highlights the key features of the CCSS for English Language Arts and explains how these features can be addressed. It offers multiple classroom-based examples of teachers implementing the CCSS while at the same time adhering to principles of good teaching that puts student learning at the center. This workshop provides strategies for individual teachers and whole departments in the process of planning units of study that address the CCSS.
Developing a School-wide Program of Writing Instruction
This workshop shows how the efforts of individual teachers can be combined to create a coherent program of writing instruction that extends across all subjects. Designed for anyone—teachers or administrators—prepared to take leadership in developing a writing initiative that moves beyond disconnected projects toward a unified approach, this workshop includes topics such as:
- Evaluating the Existing Program of Writing Instruction
- Developing School-Wide Goals
- Implementing Action Steps
- Maintaining and Improving A Writing Initiative
This workshop provides ready-to-use resources coordinated with workshop topics.
Writing on Demand
Teachers will learn strategies for following what they know to be best practices in teaching writing while still helping students prepare for writing tests. These strategies, designed to address specific features of writing on demand, can be incorporated into an existing curriculum. They adhere to the principle that test preparation and good writing instruction are not incompatible
Topics
- Read backward from a piece of finished writing to the prompt that produced it
- Learn how processes of writing are adaptable to the testing environment
- Use rhetorical analysis to understand prompts and assignments
- Make assessment—including rubrics from writing tests—visible in the composition classroom
- Deal effectively with time constraints when writing
- Foster sentence-level attention to writing
- Practice scoring writing to understand rubrics more fully
- Analyze the contexts of writing tests
Writing Workshop Testimonials
Ann Arbor, MI
"I strongly believe in a student-centered, student-driven teaching philosophy. Thus, I came to this workshop as a concession. I hate the philosophy behind standardized tests, yet my students need to do well on them to enter college. Now I feel like I have the methods to de-mystify those tests and empower my students to decode and, hopefully, feel control over the questions imposed upon them.”
“After this workshop, testing seems less insurmountable. I’ve picked up a lot of great, practical strategies that I can give to my students. I don’t feel now like I have to pull specific class time to teach to the test.”
“I will take this approach back to my department. We are charged this year with crating a school-wide writing rubric. I plan now to urge that we create TWO rubrics—one for writing on demand and one for creative writing. I agree that to recognize writing on demand as a genre directs the attention to the students’ skills within that genre’s demands.”
“The workshop has helped me to discover that writing on demand isn’t independent from writing in general. We don’t have to learn something entirely new to prepare students to succeed when writing on demand.”
“I came here with a deliberately, if not sincerely, open mind about the role of writing tests. Through the course of the workshop, my views shifted with the winds of conversation. The final discussion about writing on demand as a genre, unique in its placement and skill set, set my mind at ease and gave me ideas for how to discus this topic more readily with a rather reticent department back home."
“This workshop reaffirmed my belief that it is possible to teaching in a variety of ways and still teach the skills students need to be successful writers—both on tests and in the “real world”."
New York, NY
“My pedagogies on the process of writing are closely aligned with the content of the workshop. My thoughts have been reaffirmed, redefined and re-energized.”
”In addition to meeting other like-minded individuals, I appreciate the practicals. These sample exercises and mini-lessons can serve as springboards for my teachers to make this work come alive in the lives of their students.”
“The concept of writing tests as genre is very thought-provoking. I think this has possibilities, especially for students’ preparation for life beyond the classroom—the will have to face applications with savvy and effective responses for a lifetime.”