About Marcia S. Freeman, CraftPlus Founder

Explore other Capstone Professional titles by Marcia S. Freeman

Marcia S. Freeman is an internationally recognized authority on teaching writing craft. She is the author of more than fifty photo-illustrated science and geography guided reading books for Rourke Classroom Resources, Newbridge Educational, Rand McNally, and Red Road Publishing. She has published six professional writing titles for Maupin House.

In her approach to writing, Ms. Freeman champions:

• The necessity to explicitly teach young writers the same skills and techniques that all writers use in a systematic, age-appropriate way.
• An 80/20 practice-to-assessment ratio for writing. Assessment should be based on how well students can apply the Target Skills that they have been explicitly taught and which they have practiced.
• Non-fiction, informational writing genres as the backbone of effective writing instruction. “Informational writing is what 99 percent of people will do for 99 percent of their lifetimes,” said Freeman.
• The writing workshop (incorporating the writing process stages) as the best format for teaching craft skills explicitly. “Writing process is what writers do,” said Freeman. “Writing craft is what they know.”

Ms. Freeman developed the comprehensive, writing craft instructional approach of the CraftPlus K-8 Writing Program over a period of working with students and teachers for more than fifteen years.