Assessing Writers

Anderson offers smart, ready-to-use ideas for assessment.

Carl Anderson is one of the nation's leading experts on teaching writing to students in grades K-12. He dedicates his energies exclusively as an education consultant and writer. Carl recently worked for Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University as a Lead Staff Developer, providing staff development in the teaching of writing grades K - 8. He spent school days in New York City elementary and middle schools demonstrating effective teaching in the writing workshop and coaching teachers. He gave day-long workshops for teachers at Teachers College on launching the writing workshop, conferring with student writers, mini-lessons, and developing curriculum for the writing workshop. As a national consultant, Carl works with schools, districts and educational organizations around the country. He is known for his keynote speeches and courses at writing institutes as well as for his presentations at national conferences. Carl also taught for eight years in the Bronx, New York, Bardstown, Kentucky and Northbrook, Illinois in grades five to eight. In his book, How's It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers, Carl leads readers through the challenging but essential terrain of learning to confer with student writers. The book includes an in-depth discussion of the teacher's role in conferences, strategies for teaching students to take an active role, ways to weave literature, mini-lessons, classroom management strategies, and responses to the most frequently asked questions about conferring. Carl also authored Assessing Writers and the series Strategic Writing Conferences: Smart Conversations that Move Young Writers Forward Grades 3-6.