Sharon Gifford, principal at Challenger Elementary in Pearland ISD, is confident that "Dr. Petri demonstrates the highest level of professional commitment and competency in her work with students and teachers. Her enthusiasm, innovativeness, and genuine concern for educating students are exemplary." Contact Dr. Petri at dpetri@dpetriwritingconsultant.infofor targeted staff development in writing, Independent investigation Method research skills, reading, and gifted and talented curriculum and instruction.

Fortunately for writing teachers, no matter which state they are teaching in, most state writing assessments appear to recognize the writing research done since the early 1060's. After examining published writing in a variety of genres as well as the writing of developing writers, this large body of research found that effective writing has the same components: an awareness of audience and purpose, clear focused ideas crafted through strong word choice and a variety of sentences, clear organization, voice, and control of the conventions of the language.

What IS effective writing? You are probably as confused as most of the nation. Though there are teacher resource books,writing web page sites offering advice on writing, and a variety of approaches smartly packaged as THE one and only answer to a teacher's writing instructional needs,there are NO magic bullets. Adding to the confusion about what is important to teach in writing and how to teach it are the state writing assessemnts, which vary considerably from state to state. While Texas students in grades 4 and 8 simply write to a prompt that in the past two years been a topic with a personal connection to students' lives and have all day to complete their compositions, students in New York state write as part of their reading test, are timed, and have prompts related to reading passages. In contrast, students in Indiana must complete a variety of graphic organizers as they take the writing test at the fourth grade level and might be asked to write a story with the traditional beginning, middle, and end format.

Effective Student Writers--An Achievable Goal Given the complexity of educating children in the hothouse educational climate of No Child Left Behind, the writing curriculum and instructional questions posed for educators are many: How can we teach children from all socio-economic levels and language backgrounds to become effective writers who have mastery over these components? How can we train teachers to teach students to write who themselves may not have mastery over the components of effective writing? It can be done. After working with teachers and students from the impoverished Texas Rio Grande valley, school districts nestled in the midst of the heavily industrialized Texas ship channel area, Northeast inner city schools, and districts booming with the prosperity of new wealth created by the influx of a mobile professional class, I have confirmed what I always knew in my heart when I was a classroom teacher: that children are teachable no matter what their background, that there are many good teachers who want to improve their craft, and that with good communication,  parents will support the goals of the district and schools.