Review of Kelly Gallagher's Write Like This

*This review was written for another class (and is technically still a rough draft), but I've found his book so helpful that I want to share it in every medium possible!*

            By now, most English teachers are familiar with Kelly Gallagher.  His books Readicide and Deeper Reading are well respected in the profession.  His newest work, Write Like This, is sure to be no exception.  Teachers should come into this book prepared for a plethora of authentic writing prompts, samples, and ideas.  Indeed, Gallagher’s philosophy on writing can be summed up in that one word:  authentic.  He stresses the importance of teaching the types of writing which students will use throughout their adult lives.  Gallagher addresses each of these types of writing, using Common Core State Standards as a guide, with aplomb. 

            Chapter one begins with a probing question: “Do your students write well enough to become police officers?”  Gallagher explains that candidates for the California Highway Patrol must take an exam that specifically focuses on writing and is composed of questions quite similar to the ACT’s reading and writing portions.  Real-world applications are key for Gallagher, who argues on page 15, “My sense is that the writing requirements of most schools actually serve to limit our developing writers.  If we want young artists to develop their skills, we must move them beyond the narrowly prescribed school writing discourses found in most school districts and stretch them into areas that can be readily applied in the real world.”  He categorizes these real-world writing purposes into six categories:  express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and judge, inquire and explore, analyze and interpret, and take a stand/propose a solution. 

            An incredibly valuable tool Gallagher uses to argue the importance of these six writing purposes is a newspaper.  He argues that one can find any of these types of writing in a newspaper and gives examples of such.  He then breaks down his chapters into each type of writing.  For each writing purpose, he gives the reader many writing prompts that address both standards and these real-world writing types.  In addition to the prompts, he gives examples of his writing as well as student writing.  He includes tables with such student examples, although it’s obvious that these examples are the crème de la crème.  My one criticism of this and other teaching handbooks are that the examples tend to be much more sophisticated than the average high school student.  Rose’s Lives on the Boundary tends toward this as well.  It would be refreshing to see some examples that aren’t quite so advanced. 

            Since reading this book over the summer, I have used it innumerable times throughout the school year.  The most consistent way has been through my classroom blogs.  Last year I began blogging as a way to practice low-stakes writing combined with technology.  The posts simply took the place of paper writing assignments, however.  This year, I took Gallagher’s prompts and compiled them into a page on our classroom blogs.  I made a list of four to five prompts under each writing purpose, and I then assigned students two of each writing purpose.  Now, each time they do a blog post, my students choose whichever prompt interests them most.  This keeps them practicing authentic writing. 

            Teachers who don’t blog with their students can still benefit greatly from Write Like This.  The dozens of prompts are adaptable and could be used for many types of low-stakes writing and even for formative assessments.  Just as Lucille Schultz found that students do better when they are given developmentally appropriate writing assignments, Gallagher has supplied prompts that adolescents will find interesting and engaging.