What are the real "basics” of writing, how should they be taught, and what do they look like in children's worlds? In her new book, Anne Haas Dyson shows how highly scripted writing curricula and regimented class routines work against young children's natural social learning processes.

Anne Haas Dyson is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School, Writing Superheroes, The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write, and with Celia Genishi, Children, Language, and Literacy: Diverse Learners in Diverse Times.