Writing on Command

  Why making your students reread portions of a text they’ve already read and think about what they’ve read THROUGH WRITING will move their reading scores forward more than just discussion What is Literacy? Literacy is the ability to both read and write. We tend to think of literacy as the ability to read; it isn’t though. It is the ability to READ & WRITE.  Reading equates to word knowledge. The more words students knows, the better they comprehend their texts. That is because students automatically gain words when they have read the words 8-10 or so times. Because gaining words is automatic through reading, it's easy to see why reading is the best way to improve reading. The number of times a students has to see a word to automatically acquire it is important. A curriculum must spend enough time on a topic that students do see the words enough times to gain them. Unfortunately, most literacy curriculums fall short in the writing aspect. They tend to depend less on writin...

  By: Sarah Stratton More importantly–how do I implement WOC in a way that I cover the techniques and the strategies enough, so that my students grow as writers (and eager ones, at that), while I’m still focusing on reading too? I have created a SAMPLE 7th GRADE PACING GUIDE for each of my four quarters to illustrate how to pace the writing instruction within the reading instruction. (Even though I started teaching 7th grade at the end of October in 2023, this is how I would have progressed at the beginning of the school year if I had started with my students in the 1st quarter rather than in the 2nd quarter.) Remember–you turn your students into writers first by teaching several WOC techniques through IDIOM STORIES. You then transition into NARRATIVE if at all possible . (The reason NARRATIVE should come first is students can SEE their skill in writing narratives–narrative techniques make their writing shine, and they can tell. We build their confidence through NARRATIVE writin...

  By: Sarah Stratton If you know me well, you know that I proclaim to be the DASH QUEEN. I absolutely love the dash. It fits my writing personality perfectly. When Jason Campbell (Ruth Doyle) invited me to teach his 5th grade students the dash, I obviously jumped at the opportunity. (for more reasons than loving the dash–I love co-teaching with Jason Campbell too!)  He started out the lesson teaching his students the Ed opener. They already had learned the LY opener, double adjective opener, clause opener and the ING opener–the beauty of knowing all of these–those 5th graders were able to specialize and pick their favorite openers to contribute to their writing voice. Another perk–they understood the function and logistics of the openers already–thus teaching a new one was much easier! It didn’t take his students long to figure out how to “do” the ED opener–both with a single ED word and with an ED phrase. It was quick. They immediately saw what the ED opener could do to their...

 By:  Sarah Stratton If our students memorize an outline or formula instead of learning the anatomy of a paragraph, they will never graduate from the formulaic response that keeps their writing mediocre. Furthermore, if we want our students to continue liking to write (remember–we won them over in the narrative genre with idiom stories and an introduction to WOC techniques), we have to teach writing to the understanding level–not the outline level. (that’s not to say that outlines are not important–you’ll see that I still deem outlines/structure as paramount to learning to write informative essays.) We also have to continue teaching our students more WOC techniques that make their writing better. Simplified, body paragraphs are comprised of two components–yes, only two–EVIDENCE (information taken from the text in the form of quotes, summaries, or paraphrases) and COMMENTARY (the writer’s own words–connections, explanations, definitions, comments, etc.) That’s it. When we start...