Monday 22 May 2017

Planning Ahead for a Full Year of Writing

As the school year winds down, many teachers are caught between thinking about finishing the year off and then planning ahead for the next school year.  If you've been placed in a variety of different grades in the same school, the thought of taking on a whole new grade can be overwhelming.  My last placement had me in grades 4/5, 5, 5/6, 6 and then 3/4 within a five year stretch.  I stopped questioning why but starting asking myself "What can I do to make this grade change easier for myself?"  I began creating my own units for writing.  I knew I had to teach writing genres in each of those grades but I wanted to be able to move into different grades and combined grades knowing my students could still use the resources I developed.

In some cases, I taught students for two years in a row.  The one thing I knew was they had to comprehend the writing form but I could differentiate for them by allowing them some choice in their writing.  Here's a fun "snippet" of what my writing for the year program looks like:



If you're planning to a full year writing program, this sampler contains some ideas to get you started. This resource includes: a writing organizer with sample ideas, sample narrative writing task cards, a descriptive warm-up, transitions word list, procedural writing sample anchor chart and specialty writing paper. 

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