Provide daily time for writing

• 1 hour a day should be allotted for writing instruction and practice. To accommodate time constraints, writing can be incorporated across all subject matter.

  
  

Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes

• Students should be taught to write in multiple genres to master strategies for planning, drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing.

• Extensive research supports the value of strategy instruction in writing, especially when combined with self-regulation strategies.

• The Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model is a teaching framework that helps students learn academic strategies and self-regulation skills. The SRSD model has been studied extensively as a way to teach strategies for planning based on text structure and somewhat less often to teach strategies for revising. SRSD provides memorization routines, guided practice, and support for independent practice. This approach has been found to increase student writing quality, use of genre elements, writing length, and ability to self-regulate their performance.

• SRSD provides memorization routines, guided practice, and support for independent practice

Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing.

• All of the things listed above are expected by an audience from a writer. As students develop writing skills, they should increase their abilities in all of these areas.

• Instruction in each of these areas will contribute to overall increase in writing performance.

The CCSS (CCSSI, 2010) state that students should be able to write for three main text types and purposes; that they should engage in strategies for planning and revising; and that they should be able to write based on their reading.

The CCSS clearly state that students in grades 3–5 should be able to write for three broad purposes: to narrate, to persuade, and to inform. In addition, they should learn multiple subgenres within each overall purpose.

Teaching students to engage in the writing process is also central to both the Standards and the practice guide. The instructional chapters in the text provide explicit and systematic instruction in the process of planning, drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing.

CCSS state that students should be able to write about what they read. The text integrates both reading and writing by introducing genres and their elements through read-alouds of mentor texts and then providing writing instruction in each genre.

The recommendations in the writing practice guide indicate that students should be able to (1) engage in problem solving, (2) manage writing tasks, and (3) regulate their writing processes. The lesson in the text support self-regulation, progress monitoring, motivation, and reflection.

The goal of the text is to help students learn the key elements and features of particular genres.

Another goal of the text is to help students learn how to use genre-specific knowledge to plan, draft, evaluate, and revise their own papers.

To achieve these goals, students will learn a specific set of strategies for approaching these tasks. The strategies can then be adapted to different genres. Self-regulation is thoroughly emphasizes throughout the text.

Strategies are conscious processes for solving problems or performing complex tasks (MacArthur, 2011).

Strategy instruction is an evidence-based approach that draws on multiple theoretical sources and research evidence to address three instructional questions: (1) which writing strategies to teach, (2) how to help students use those strategies independently, and (3) what instructional methods to use in order to support student learning.

An integrated set of strategies for planning, drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing is presented as a Writing Strategy Ladder.

Each step on the ladder signifies tasks related to each part of the writing process.

The writing strategy ladder supports students in a variety of ways:

(1) It visually highlights that good writing requires the application of a process or series of steps.

(2)The ladder is a realization to students that writing is a process that requires hard work and effort, but it can be done in a systematic way that makes it easier.

(3) It serves as a visual reference for students as they go through the writing process.

(4) The ladder repeats across different genres and therefore becomes familiar to students.

Planning is an important part of the writing process that helps writers stay focused and complete their work without getting lost. Planning involves the generation and organization of ideas.

Planning acts as a roadmap for writers by guiding them through from point A to point B. A plan helps writers stay focused on their topic in a meaningful way without distraction.

FTAP is a planning tool that can help writers think about the task at hand and consider the time and effort they need to devote to completing it. F stands for form, T stands for topic, A stands for audience, and P stands for purpose.

FTAP can help writers decide the length of their writing, who they are writing for, the genre of writing, and the purpose.

Generating ideas is another task that goes into planning. This involves brainstorming, reading, and note taking.

Generating ideas is important because students can determine if they know enough about a topic to write about it. Generating ideas can also look different depending on the genre. For example, if students are going to write a persuasive writing piece, they must generate ideas in favor and against an opinion.

Graphic Organizer such as the one referred to go "GO" in the text can also be used in the planning stage. This is basically a beginning, middle and end chart. Each beginning, middle, and end may look different depending on the genre.

Evaluation refers to the critical examination of written information with the purpose of identifying areas that need to be improved.

Improvements may include additional information, deletion of information or words, making changes to wording, or making changes to the organization of the writing.

Evaluation requires students to read critically and to diagnose problems in a written text.

Although editing is similar to the evaluate and revise step, it's different in the fact that editing is done to fix spelling, Grammer, and word usage errors that make the text difficult to read and understand.

SCIPS can be used as a reference for editing. SCIPS stands for spelling, capital letters, indentation, punctuation, and spelling.

Students should receive practice on correcting these types of errors before they are expected to do so in their own writing.

The final step on the writing process ladder is to publish. This is when students share and celebrate their writing.

Students can share their writing with classmates and other students in their grades. They could even publish their writing online to a wider audience. Teachers could create classroom blogs that students can publish writing to in order to motivate students.

Self-talk is a self-regulation strategy that can be used in writing for students to support themselves through the process.

In lesson 3 from chapters 4-6, students are asked to think of things they could say to themselves to stay engaged, check their progress, and monitor their work. Teachers can ask students to record things they could say to themselves while working to help them complete the task instead of resorting to negative talk.

Students can use the self-talk recording sheet to aid in this process.

Discuss the purpose: Teachers should briefly discuss the genre of the text and it's purpose.

Explain the Genre Elements: Display the elements of the genre and explain them to students. Discuss the importance of each and what comes at the beginning, middle, and end of the genre.

Apply the Genre Elements as you Read: Stop throughout the read aloud as you come across the elements of the genre. Discuss the elements with the students to help them understand the genre and how it's conveyed throughout the story. Discuss characters, settings, problems and ask questions.

Teacher Evaluation of a Good Example: Teacher should read a paper that represents a good example of the genre and evaluate the paper as they are reading. The paper should be compared to a rubric. Teacher should point out the genre elements as they come across them. Students can participate but teacher should lead the process.

Teacher Evaluation of a Weak Example: Again, teacher should read through the paper and score with rubric, pointing out the genre elements. Teacher should give impression of the paper and why they feel the way they do about the paper.

Collaborative Evaluation of a Weak Example: Collaboratively work with students to evaluate a weak example. Have students identify genre elements and record their evaluations and ideas for the paper. This can also be done on peer papers and their own papers for peer and self-evaluation.

Teacher should model the complete process of writing a paper (planning-evaluating and revising). The plan for writing and the paper itself should be written on chart paper or the board where students can see. Provide a think-aloud throughout the process so students can understand what goes into planning and writing a paper.

Teacher should model self-regulation as a part of the process. Difficulties and overcoming them should be modeled as well. Using self-talk allows students to see how you set goals, monitor your progress, handle challenges, and congratulate themselves.

Students should work on one or more new papers in the genre to practice applying the writing process. Teacher will provide more modeling and mini-lessons as needed.

Continuous Assessment is important to monitor and evaluate student progress as they write. Genre-specific rubrics can be used for this. This evaluation can guide future instruction.

Throughout the sequence of lessons, the teacher will provide mini-lessons on writing features that are common to the specific genre being taught.

New writing expectations should be added to rubrics as mini-lessons are taught.

The point of think-aloud modeling is to show students how you think as you come up with ideas, organize them, and draft sentences.

Modeling should be live so students can see the process as it happens.

Teachers should work at the level of their students.

Teachers should refer to each step of the strategy before doing it so students can see how you use the writing strategy ladder.

Teachers should include self-regulation statements in the modeling.

During collaborative writing, the teacher guides the students to use the strategies but they are coming up with the ideas and language.

All student ideas may not get used and the teacher should help them select ideas for the graphic organizer.

Drafting during collaborative writing gives the teacher opportunity to model good sentence writing.

Self regulation is important for students' success in academics and later in life. It should be modeled through think alouds.

The text suggestions that once students complete a paper, they should go through both peer and self evaluation to set goals for their next piece. This can help students see how they have accomplished goals over time in their writing.

Teachers can model self-regulation across all curriculum.

Students need to see this modeled because this can be a difficult process for students. It's easy for students to want to assign themselves and their peers high scores.

Teacher encouragement, honesty, and leadership when you practice reviewing can help develop a community of learners who are willing to learn from one another.

There are even online applications that allow for anonymous reviews.

Read alouds work as mentor texts for writing. These books serve as a way to discuss purpose, elements of genre, and writer's craft.

Books can be used to introduce mini-lessons.

Because the transition from guided writing to independent practice is based on mastery and not time, students should be asked to write more than one paper in each genre.

The text recommends to use a minimum standard in which all students can explain the main elements of the genre and the steps in the strategy and are able to create a plan and write a paper that includes all the critical genre elements. Due to the flexibility of strategy instruction, differentiation can be provided so that some students can work on developing techniques to improve their writing while others are still mastering the minimal standards.

Differentiation of lessons is based on your evaluation of students’ progress

You can model parts of the writing strategy for groups that need more practice with the basic strategy and genre elements

You can provide additional mini-lessons for groups that are ready to expand their understanding of good writing in the genre.

"Stories are fundamental to how individuals, families, and cultures give meaning to their lives and learn about the world around them."

Stories can be representative of each person's identity.

Students enter school with a basic understanding of stories, but the depth of that understanding varies on their cultural background.

There are many genres of fiction writing that students can engage in: realistic fiction, fairytales, fables, mysteries, historical fiction, personal narratives.

Most stories have the following common elements: characters, setting, goals & problems, sequence of actions to solve those problems, and resolution. Personal narratives may not include all of these elements.

These story elements should be introduced to students during read-alouds first before teaching about how to incorporate them in writing.

Research has shown that teaching strategies based on these elements can enhance reading comprehension and students' ability to write stories.

Stories should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

The beginning of a story should clearly describe the characters, setting, and problem.

The middle of a story should include logical, clearly explained events and complications that lead to new events or problems.

The end of a story should provide a solution to the problem and convey a character's emotions about the experiences.

Persuasive writing is all around us, so it is important for students to know what it is so they can recognize it and practice it.

Persuasive writing is also important to teach to students because it will help them develop critical thinking skills.

The elements of each genre should always be introduced through read alouds and discussion several times prior to the writing lessons over that specific genre.

Read alouds support student learning of each genre's key elements.

Read alouds promote class discussion of the ways the author presents information in that specific genre.

The texts chosen for read alouds can serve as mentor texts for the mini lessons taught on that specific genre.

Compare = looking for similarities

Contrast = looking for differences

This genre of writing can be very challenging for students because it incorporates some new skills like note-taking into the writing process.

It is important to teach students because it is a great way to learn information, especially in science and social studies.

Students must gather information to include in their writing by reading and comprehending texts on the topic.

Students then have to take notes on what is most important in the texts, often integrating information from more than one text.

This genre also requires students to organize information by categories and by similarities and differences.

Finally, students are asked to write what they learned from the texts in their own words to avoid plagiarism.

For compare/contrast writing, students are often asked to write using sources which integrates reading and writing.

To introduce compare and contrast writing through a read aloud book, you will most likely use a well written paper rather than a trade book.

What is the topic and what is being compared to what?

What is the purpose of the comparison?

What are the similarities? How do you know?

What are the differences? How do you know?

A unique way to publish students' compare/contrast writing would be to create a Glogster that students can post their work on.