ABSTRACT
Humans are so innately hardwired for language that they can no more suppress their ability to learn and use language than they can suppress the instinct to pull a hand back from a hot surface. Patterns of Power offers concrete strategies to support application over the course of the school year. High school writers become most fluent at editing their own writing and that of others by applying a skill multiple times in multiple contexts. Students apply a convention by using it to respond with or without a prompt. News sources are great for analyzing how prepositional phrases are used to help readers feel what the writer wants them to feel. Students can keep their own personal lists to refer back to, but having a class wall chart where students share gems from their collections allows celebration to happen, and it allows the students to see the models in the room.
