Encouraging kids to make decisions about their writing, rather than blindly following grammar rules helps lifts the level of their thinking, and the level of their writing.
Category: units of study
Throwback Week: How To Read A Unit of Study
Learn some tricks for reading the Units of Study, whether you're new to the units or have been using them for many years.
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Work Smarter: Use checklists throughout a unit of study …and beyond
I’ll begin by being honest - I don’t like checklists. It’s a personal thing. Checklists make me anxious, they fill me with the fear of impending failure. As soon as I’ve taken the time to assemble a checklist, I am filled with a sense of dread. I wonder, how am I ever to accomplish any of… Continue reading Work Smarter: Use checklists throughout a unit of study …and beyond
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Sharing the Work: Assigning Teacher Leaders for Unit Planning
There is an adage: if the teacher is working too hard, the students aren't working hard enough. There are many cases where this is true: in a writing conference when the teacher is doing all of the talking, during the revision process when a student is following a teacher's notated directions, in a lesson where the… Continue reading Sharing the Work: Assigning Teacher Leaders for Unit Planning
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How To Read A Unit of Study
As the school year comes to a close, many of the schools I work with are launching into a week or so of in-service, summer institutes, and other professional development. It's "curriculum season" in many places around the country. For many writing teachers, that means diving into the Units of Study for Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing by Lucy… Continue reading How To Read A Unit of Study
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Get Out Your Calendars! It’s June Planning Time!
If we do nothing else, we do this one thing…Read this post to find out what it is!
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Top Ten Ways to Keep Minilessons from Turning into Maxilessons
We've all been there. You've gathered your students into the classroom meeting area, nice and cozy, with the intention of doing just a quick l'il minilesson. Just a quick tip about writing and off they go, right? Maybe just a quick little demonstration? With a tiny bit of practice? Oh, and a chart... you'll need… Continue reading Top Ten Ways to Keep Minilessons from Turning into Maxilessons
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E-mail: A Mini Unit of Study
After reading "Technology and the College Generation," I've come to believe teachers of writing need to craft mini units of study to help kids learn to use e-mail confidently.
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Not Just Your Run-of-the-Mill Biography Unit Study
4th Grade Teacher (& Slicer) Noor Shammas writes about her students' Community Member Biography Project.
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New Units of Study
I purchased the original Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3 - 5 when they were published in 2006. In the early days, those books were like a Bible to me. I used them to help me plan the scope and sequence of many of the units of study I taught. When I moved… Continue reading New Units of Study
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Reading More, Understanding More
Today a third grade teacher stopped me and said, "You should read some of the reviews my students wrote. They are awesome." "Really?" I smiled. "Oh yeah. They were so much better than last year." Last year she opened her classroom to me in order to try-out some of my thinking about opinion writing, specifically… Continue reading Reading More, Understanding More
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Documenting Our Learning
Sometimes I think about the amazing work happening in writing workshops, and then wonder if anyone else notices. Sometimes the things that are most amazing are small bits that pack big meaning. Sometimes the most amazing work can be easily missed. Often young writers' (or even old writers') talk is ahead of their walk. We… Continue reading Documenting Our Learning
