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.
No comments: