Paragraph of the week is a focused paragraph writing strategy. This strategy focuses on a few different pieces of the writing including the process, organization, and sentence structure. As the you are teaching your students, this strategy can be easily differentiated to each students needs. 

Learning needs being met: Writing Process, writing organization, sentence structure, and writing conventions

How it works?:

 Each week in the beginning of writing class students will be given a paragraph of the week packet. This packet will including a prompt on the front cover as well as steps for each day. The steps include: Brainstorming, writing the supporting details and evidence, writing the topic sentence and concluding sentence, drafting, and finally writing the final draft.  

To implement this, each monday, or beginning of the week I would introduce the writing prompt. For the first couple weeks, I would model each step. As students get used to writing, and are more familiar they will be able to do more of the writing process independently. But, in the beginning start with a mini-lesson guiding and discussing each step. 

MONDAY: Writing prompt intro and brainstorming. Students write 5-8 ideas in the box provided. 

TUESDAY: Students are to use their brainstorming page to write 3 supporting details, each supporting detail will need evidence or an elaboration explaining or giving an example of the supporting detail. 

WEDNESDAY: Students will write a topic and concluding sentence. 

THURSDAY: This is draft day. Students will put together their topic sentence, supporting details, evidence/elaborations, and concluding sentence. 

FRIDAY: Students are to edit and create their final draft by typing it on the computer. 

A few ways to incorporate assistive technology would be voice to text, as well as creating a computer, or ipad version of the document. When typing their final draft, students would be able to use voice to text, and/ or the editing tools on the computer. 

How to collect learning data: 

There are a few ways a teacher will be collecting data. 

 

https://jodidurgin.com/paragraphoftheweek/ 

Using the questioning strategy is way for students to practice and understand their reading better. When students are able to ask questions about a text, it allows them to be more engaged in their reading. This can lead them to better understanding, or researching deeper on a topic. This can help students clarify, or comprehend what they are reading. For example, a student may ask themselves a question, and as they are continuing to read the book they are able to answer the question themselves. Asking questions while reading, is a skill that is modeled, taught, and practiced. Asking questions before, during, and after reading can helps students create a purpose for reading. 

Learning needs being met: Comprehension, decoding, purposeful reading

How it works?: 

When readers ask questions before they read, they are getting themselves interested in the text and engaging their previous knowledge about topics. As they are reading during the text, they are able to question many different pieces including: author, self and the text. When students are asking questions after the reading, they are able to use further knowledge to either research more, or build on previous knowledge. 

The first thing to do when doing this strategy is to model it first. Take it step by step by first modeling and doing an activity with just the before questions, during questions, and after questions. As students become more comfortable with the questioning they will be able to use this strategy, and continue to build on their reading comprehension skills. The more they practice this, the more they will start to do this comprehension strategy more often. You may implement this at first as a whole group lesson, then break it up into small groups based on the students were are understanding, needing more practice, and those who don’t get it at all. 

Assistive technology may be used through audio books, and or speech to text. A student may use a digital copy of a graphic organizer rather that writing down their answers on paper. 

Self-advocacy skills will begin to build as the student becomes more comfortable with asking questions while reading. As students are practicing, and practicing this skill will help them understand their reading, adn they will use it as they read a book, or article each time. Students will know they understand and utilize the skill when students are able to use the questions to create dialogue thinking in their own head. 

To collect learning data, teachers will be able to observe and take anecdotal notes, as well as take a look at their graphic organizers students are writing on. In the long run, teachers will notice the comprehension scores, engagement, and purpose in reading to be higher. 

The STAR strategy is way first-letter mnemonic that can help students recall steps from words to help solve word problems involving integer numbers. 

S-search the word problem

T-translate the problem

A-Answer the problem

R- review the solution 

Learning needs being met: Problem Solving skills, Basic Math Fluency 

S: The first step is to search the word problem. Read carefully and write down what you know and what you need to find. 

T: Then translate the problem into picture form, or a way that makes sense to you. For example, with negative and positive numbers, you will draw a picture of tiles to help you better understand, or you could draw a number line. 

A: Answer the problem. 

R: Check your answer—- this is always important step to get in the habit of early. 

The first step would be for the teacher to introduce the strategy, along with introducing they will provide visuals to demonstrate the problems on the worksheets. State that, it is important to have these skills to solve real world problems. The teacher will then model 2-3 integer problems. Then, the teacher will have students help guide through the problems. As they gradually get the hang of it, students will be able to independently go through each step and problem using the strategy. After, students will turn and talk to their table partners to describe what they did to solve the problem.

How assistive technology might be used: 

Assistive technology that might be good to use would be actual manipulatives, rather than drawing, or even a number line. We want to try to stay away from using a calculator at first, due to the rules of subtracting and adding negative and positive integers. 

The teacher will be building the use of self-advocacy skills through the use of modeling, guiding, and sending students off on their own as they start to gain confidence with the skill. 

The teacher will collect data through observation, student reflection, and based on exit, or worksheet completion. 

https://www.ldonline.org/ld-topics/teaching-instruction/mathematics-strategy-instruction-si-middle-school-students-learning

S earch the word problem

T ranslate the words into an equation in picture form

A nswer the problem

R eview the Solution