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For writing samples, please click on the boldfaced items.
For Kids
Kathy gets a huge kick out of writing non-fiction for kids. She is geekily excited by fascinating facts she's pretty sure her audience has never considered before, and enjoys the process of figuring out how to tell the story so that kids will respond in the same way. Kathy has learned that the world is full of surprises that are impossible to banish from your brain: birds that cannot fly, plants that repel insects, toads that require a "cloud forest" climate to survive.
Writing leveled readers presents some extra challenges; vocabulary and sentence length are carefully controlled to match the varied skill levels of young readers.
Doomed to Disappear? Endangered Species
Benchmark Education
Grade 4, 32 pages
Fabric Around the World
Benchmark Education
Grade 2, 20 pages
Survival in the Great Sandy Desert
Macmillan McGraw-Hill
Grade 4, 16 pages
One of three leveled readers for the "Treasures" program, each featuring a different desert habitat
For Adults
An integral part of the Roads to Success classroom guidance program, family newsletters provided context for each unit, grades 7-12. As the writer, Kathy aimed for a sixth-grade reading level so low literacy wouldn't pose a barrier for parents.
Grade 7 Family Newsletter: Setting Goals
Grade 12 Family Newsletter: Next Steps
Kathy wrote this column for "Classroom Connections," a regular feature in the Association of Middle Level Education's quarterly publication, Middle Ground. The audience is middle school teachers in search of info they can use right away.
Classroom Connections: Career Development in Young Adolescents
Kathy gets a huge kick out of writing non-fiction for kids. She is geekily excited by fascinating facts she's pretty sure her audience has never considered before, and enjoys the process of figuring out how to tell the story so that kids will respond in the same way. Kathy has learned that the world is full of surprises that are impossible to banish from your brain: birds that cannot fly, plants that repel insects, toads that require a "cloud forest" climate to survive.
Writing leveled readers presents some extra challenges; vocabulary and sentence length are carefully controlled to match the varied skill levels of young readers.
Doomed to Disappear? Endangered Species
Benchmark Education
Grade 4, 32 pages
Fabric Around the World
Benchmark Education
Grade 2, 20 pages
Survival in the Great Sandy Desert
Macmillan McGraw-Hill
Grade 4, 16 pages
One of three leveled readers for the "Treasures" program, each featuring a different desert habitat
For Adults
An integral part of the Roads to Success classroom guidance program, family newsletters provided context for each unit, grades 7-12. As the writer, Kathy aimed for a sixth-grade reading level so low literacy wouldn't pose a barrier for parents.
Grade 7 Family Newsletter: Setting Goals
Grade 12 Family Newsletter: Next Steps
Kathy wrote this column for "Classroom Connections," a regular feature in the Association of Middle Level Education's quarterly publication, Middle Ground. The audience is middle school teachers in search of info they can use right away.
Classroom Connections: Career Development in Young Adolescents