Disclaimer: The bad thing about being a writing teacher is that you spend copious amounts of time editing other people's writing and very little time working on your own. I am excited to spend my upcoming breaks adding these tools to my writer toolbox and not just my editor toolbox.
I've been on a quest for the best writing handbooks. I teach two creative writing classes and one journalism class. I have to have a book that can handle any style of writing. It has to be lean and muscular enough to lift journalistic writing and flexible and swift enough to undergird imaginative writing. I figured I was in for a lengthy and somewhat painful search.
Not so. Very quickly I found a title popping up all over the place. That title: Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark. It's been around for a few years, but this is the first year I've gotten my teaching feet underneath me enough to be out of survival mode and into growth mode.
Clark's book is a mini writing institute. In the Introduction, Clark hooked me with two ideas. First, we should be a nation of writers. Why should a select few be tagged to speak for everyone? Writing is a craft, an acquirable skill; anyone can do it and do it well, if given the right tools. And second, he collected the tools from the Poynter Institute, which is THE quintessential journalistic training forum.
Every writer should have Clark's book on his desk. I started to say on his shelf, but this book is desk-top material, not shelf material. It's one for daily use. As matter of fact, I have three book titles on my desk at school. The Bible, the AP Stylebook, and Writing Tools. I'll never teach without them again.
Word of caution: If you are thinking about using Writing Tools with a student, make sure the student is at least high school age. Many of the examples of good writing deal with sensitive topics (PG-13). It's not a book for teaching the younger kiddies how to write.
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