Authors’ Teaching Tips Focus on Reading and Writing: Intermediate Laurie (Betta) Barton I love to build a sense of community in my classes. One way to do this is to read student writing aloud to the class and have the students guess who the author is. Once they guess correctly, they can ask the author follow-up questions. This is a good way for students to discover new things about each other.  I see the writing assignments in Northstar as the "grand finale" of the unit. They give students a chance to put it all together: ideas, vocabulary, and grammar. Then it's very important to share what we have written with each other. I often photocopy excellent examples of student writing and pass them out for everyone to read and enjoy.