Write With Janet
Write With Janet (home classroom), 203 Chester St, Menlo Park, CA
About
Write With Janet offers writing classes where students take part in small-group, semi-private, and private writing classes focused on writing. Students in these classes discuss the techniques published authors use, share their work in progress, and learn to give and receive real feedback. Janet does not provide tutoring or help with schoolwork and homework; Write With Janet is its own writing program.
• Ages: 7–13 years old
• Schedule: Writing classes for grades 2–8 during the school year, with classes offered full-time in the summer
Write With Janet began in 2011 as summer writing classes for students who were not learning well from regular classroom instruction and later grew into a year-round program. Classes are kept small, with 3–6 students in small-group classes, 2–3 students in semi-private classes, and 1 student in private classes, and groups are built so that students of similar age and writing level work together. Sessions fill quickly, and registration is handled through an online system at register.writewithjanet.com, with placement done personally and groups hand-built.
Write With Janet is led by Janet Rose, a retired Palo Alto teacher with 42 years in the classroom, 34 of those years in Palo Alto. She is a former Palo Alto Unified literacy teacher who conducted teacher-training workshops in literacy in and outside Palo Alto, trained in the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, and retired from teaching second grade at Palo Verde School. She holds an MA in Early Childhood Education and has worked with students from pre-K through 8th grade. Janet also offers educational consulting for families whose children are struggling, including guidance through the public-school assessment process, IEP and 504 meetings, and finding outside services that work.
The stated goal for most students in Write With Janet is confidence and fluency: finding their own voice, learning that writing is revising, and discovering that it can be fun. Classes take place on a comfortable sofa, usually with a warm yellow lab asleep at the students’ feet, and the program describes itself as “like school with dogs,” with labs Violet, Polar Bear, and Reckless (Violet’s brother) as part of the environment. One whole class once stayed after the lesson to watch the dogs eat dinner, and the program sums up the experience as “Kids come for the dogs – stay for the writing.”
Parent and student comments about Write With Janet include: “Everyone is a good writer. You just have to find it!” from Milan, a 5th grader in the middle of his first lesson; “It’s even more fun than school because it’s school with a dog!” from a student who coined the motto; and “Your writing program is the only after-school program that my kids want to do,” from a parent.
Last updated July 26, 2026.
• Ages: 7–13 years old
• Schedule: Writing classes for grades 2–8 during the school year, with classes offered full-time in the summer
Write With Janet began in 2011 as summer writing classes for students who were not learning well from regular classroom instruction and later grew into a year-round program. Classes are kept small, with 3–6 students in small-group classes, 2–3 students in semi-private classes, and 1 student in private classes, and groups are built so that students of similar age and writing level work together. Sessions fill quickly, and registration is handled through an online system at register.writewithjanet.com, with placement done personally and groups hand-built.
Write With Janet is led by Janet Rose, a retired Palo Alto teacher with 42 years in the classroom, 34 of those years in Palo Alto. She is a former Palo Alto Unified literacy teacher who conducted teacher-training workshops in literacy in and outside Palo Alto, trained in the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, and retired from teaching second grade at Palo Verde School. She holds an MA in Early Childhood Education and has worked with students from pre-K through 8th grade. Janet also offers educational consulting for families whose children are struggling, including guidance through the public-school assessment process, IEP and 504 meetings, and finding outside services that work.
The stated goal for most students in Write With Janet is confidence and fluency: finding their own voice, learning that writing is revising, and discovering that it can be fun. Classes take place on a comfortable sofa, usually with a warm yellow lab asleep at the students’ feet, and the program describes itself as “like school with dogs,” with labs Violet, Polar Bear, and Reckless (Violet’s brother) as part of the environment. One whole class once stayed after the lesson to watch the dogs eat dinner, and the program sums up the experience as “Kids come for the dogs – stay for the writing.”
Parent and student comments about Write With Janet include: “Everyone is a good writer. You just have to find it!” from Milan, a 5th grader in the middle of his first lesson; “It’s even more fun than school because it’s school with a dog!” from a student who coined the motto; and “Your writing program is the only after-school program that my kids want to do,” from a parent.
Last updated July 26, 2026.
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