This creative middle grades workbook presents essay writing as both practical communication and art form-and, therefore, presents an architectural approach to the writing process where purposeful thought and imagination are primary. A STEM and Maker mentality applied to writing. An excellent choice for a stand-alone introduction to essay writing. Architecture is often defined as "the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings" or "the complex or carefully designed structure of something." The purpose of this text is to introduce and to consider the standard 5-part essay as a construction, exploring its complexity and exercising the limitless intellectual, individual, and creative possibility that comes from approaching essay structure with an architectural eye and mindset. Engaging examples and writing exercises. Supplemental readings from Ian McEwan's young adult book The Daydreamer are referenced and encouraged to further nurture artful, original, and ambitious thinking and writing.
About the Author: Author Colleen Potocki has been teaching and writing for a long time. She taught middle school and high school English at The Roeper School, a co-educational PK-12 school for gifted students in Birmingham, Michigan, for sixteen years--interrupted briefly to teach composition and literature courses at Gulf Coast Community College where she received tenure. She spent one wonderful year at Seaside Middle School in Seaside, Florida where she met her good friend and fellow teacher Kim Mixson. She worked twelve years teaching Business Writing as a Special Lecturer at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Mrs. Potocki is currently the Head of Middle School at Community School of Naples, a PK-12 school dedicated to academic excellence. She still teaches middle school English. Mrs. Potocki loves teaching writing, so she does not plan to give it up. Mrs. Potocki has six children-five daughters and a son. She has worked hard in order to afford independent school tuition and college tuition for her children. She places a high value on quality education. Mrs. Potocki has a B.A. and M.A. in English from Oakland University and a M.Ed. in Independent School Leadership from Vanderbilt University. She is available to run Think It, Build It writing workshops for middle school teachers and/or students. She also offers writing workshops for school administrators, presenting a go-to writing process for administrative blogging that links routine communication and institutional advancement as a collaborative schema-underscoring that a school leader needs an effective, manageable, and creative approach to professional writing.