Deborah Dean

Deborah, a member of the NCTE Consulting Network, taught English in junior high and high school in Washington for ten years before moving to Brigham Young University to teach English education. Because she saw many students struggle, unable to enjoy or see the value in writing, she became interested in helping them improve their use of and interest in writing. Her teaching assignments eventually focused on writing—journalism, college prep writing, sophomore and junior composition, and a course for students who failed state writing tests. Writing and language are still areas of interest in her teaching and scholarship.

She has published in several journals affiliated with NCTE and IRA, and has a book published by NCTE on teaching writing, Strategic Writing: The Writing Process and Beyond in the Secondary English Classroom.

Lessons on ReadWriteThink

Blurring Genre: Exploring Fiction and Nonfiction with Diary of a Worm (6-8)
Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research is incorporated into entertaining writing. They may believe that research only applies to school writing. In this lesson, students incorporate facts into a variety of text types, creating a class book similar to Diary of a Worm.

Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose (9-12)
Using this lesson plan, students create informative brochures that combine visual and verbal texts effectively, improving their ability to interpret other texts they encounter that combine graphics with writing. Additionally, students learn strategies for addressing audience and purpose that transfer into writing for other purposes and audiences.

Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern (6-8)
Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers.

Letters and Learning Genre (6-8)
Combining their prior knowledge of letters with several books containing letters, students learn how genres can flex to accomplish different purposes for different contexts. Students show their understanding of genre by rewriting a story and reflecting on how a traditional story differs from a story told in letters.

Once Upon a Fairy Tale: Teaching Revision as a Concept (6-8)
Students sometimes have trouble understanding the difference between the global issues of revision and the local ones of editing. In this lesson, students use fractured fairy tales to enhance understanding and then practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of other fairy tales.

Semicolons and Swift: Analyzing Punctuation and Meaning (9-12)
Many students see punctuation as only a set of rules, not as a tool that can help them shape meaning in their writing. This lesson encourages students to analyze and use one type of punctuation—semicolons—as a way to enhance meaning.