ABSTRACT
Nothing motivates student writers like seeing their writing in print. The problem for teachers in “publishing” student work is twofold—some writing is unworthy of the students, and even the best writing can be prohibitively lengthy. A solution for this problem is to select the best sentences, passages, or lines from the writing and make them available for all to read. Even poets and novelists can show you their best lines. When the teacher models the excerpting process, the students can learn to pick out their best lines or passages. If the teacher does a dramatic reading of the selections, students gain a deeper sense of the power of language and of their ability to produce it. To be writers, they have to know they can be.
