This document provides a summary of an adolescent writing course that aims to improve the teaching of writing. The course explores cognitive rigor in writing, important reasons for writing, backward design to determine what students should learn and do, assessments that encourage writing, the importance of graphic organizers and text structures, grammar mini lessons to develop editing skills, using peer response as part of the revision process, publishing writing and gaining responses from peers, and how taking the course benefits improving both writing and teaching writing.