Mentoring Youth Writers: Six Strategies to Bring Out the Author in Every Student
How can teachers bring out the author (or graphic novelist, filmmaker, songwriter...) in every student? Mentoring Youth Writers outlines six strategies to engage and inspire secondary students and guide them into writing as an authentic and meaningful practice:
- exploring multimodal forms of writing;
- inviting choice;
- building community;
- honoring student knowledge and experience;
- nurturing students as writers; and
- connecting writers to opportunities beyond the classroom.
Readers will go inside the Young Authors’ Studio program to see examples of mentoring in action. In addition, experienced teachers discuss how they have used these six strategies with secondary students. Learn why a mentoring stance is needed in education today and how this work aligns with NCTE’s Position Statement on Writing Instruction in School (2022) and other research and theory in English education. Classroom-ready activities are provided to bring ideas to life in schools and community programs.
Bio
Wendy R. Williams, associate professor of English education in ASU's College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, researches secondary writing instruction and visual/multimodal narrative. She is the author of two scholarly books, Listen to the Poet: Writing, Performance, and Community in Youth Spoken Word Poetry (2018, University of Massachusetts) and Mentoring Youth Writers: Six Strategies to Bring out the Author in Every Student (2025, National Council of Teachers of English). Williams’s research has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Visual Literacy, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, English Journal, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE English Language Arts), Pedagogies: An International Journal, and English Teaching: Practice and Critique. Currently, she is analyzing data for her third book (on visual storytelling), and she is the lead guest editor of a special issue of English Journal on “Food Studies in English Language Arts” (Nov. 2026 issue).
Williams has been a keynote speaker for the National Council of Teachers of English Assembly for Research Conference and has delivered 40 national and 17 local conference presentations and numerous invited talks. Her work has been supported with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Arizona Humanities.
She is engaged in professional leadership, currently serving as Co-Chair of the National Council of Teachers of English’s ELATE Commission on Arts and Literacies (120+ members). In this role, she has organized an NCTE session featuring 14 roundtables on arts integration, started an online series that included workshops on faculty mentoring and arts integration research, and launched a member newsletter. At ASU, Williams currently serves in a leadership role as Co-Chair of ASU’s Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee (Interim Chair in Spring 2025), and she is a member of ASU’s Grievance Committee and the Senate Executive Committee.
Williams developed the undergraduate Writing Certificate in ASU's College of Integrative Sciences and Arts and helped launch the MA Narrative Studies degree. She has taught ASU’s YA literature and secondary English teaching methods courses and has created new ASU courses as well (some shared nationally/internationally as models of curricular innovation): ENG 466 Studio Ghibli Films, ENG 520/446 Visual Narratives, ENG 473 Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature, ENG 584/484 Mentoring Youth Writers, ENG 394 Writing about Food, and ENG 505 Narrative Research Methods. In addition, Williams has supervised student teachers, organized professional development workshops for pre-/in-service teachers, built a lecture series and annual symposium to showcase the work of faculty/students/alumni, and created literacy events/programs for youth in the community.
A classically trained chef and certified Maricopa County Master Gardener, she has published 33 short pieces on food-related topics such as kitchen design, specialty food shops, and cooking with locally-grown ingredients. She is an avid gardener, amateur cellist, and former Shotokan karateka (JKA/ISKF).
