Between the two of us we have been in the classroom over 40 years! During that time we have had many ups and downs in trying to teach writing in a language arts classroom. Our early frustration stemmed from the students' inability to organize information. It was also disappointing that no amount of teaching or encouragement seemed to motivate students to write quality sentences, paragraphs, etc.

Over the years we both began to hit upon processes and methods that helped our students to organize and to develop better, more complex work. After beginning to teach at the same school and at the same grade level, we began to realize that we used many of the same processes and methods to teach writing to our students. So we set out to develop a common vocabulary and a structured program that we could use to improve student writing.

In working together and by combining our years of tears and knowledge, we feel we finally hit on something that actually works. Over the past several years we have perfected our ideas. Early on other teachers in our building began to show an interest in knowing how to do what we do. So we determined that our Writing TAGS program was one to be shared with others and our writing workshop was born! We hope that your success in teaching writing will be fostered by what the Writing TAGS program has to offer. Good luck and happy writing!