Book excerpt: From setting the stage to engaging the classroom in understanding the writing process, this book covers what teachers need to know to instruct students in expository writing. The book is ideal for teachers who are looking for an easy and logical way to teach expository writing in the elementary grades especially for at-risk students who have such limited background knowledge. Each lesson is designed to teach writing in executable steps that produce a high student success rate. Through the use of the direct instruction model, each leasson plan follows a five-step process: skill instroduction, modeling, guided practice, structured practice, and independent practice. Most of the lesson plans include examples to make teacher preparation as painless as possible. Following the 50 carefully designed and explicit lesson plans are a wealth of resources including a template for the Writer's Notebook, Night Writes journal entries, word of the day entries and expository writing prompts.