Our Writing Program
Based on the research we have been reading, we will undertake the following actions to improve our students’ writing and academic success:
1. Students will write more. A lot more. They will get a lot more writing practice.
2. Teachers will model good writing. Writing will be taught, not just assigned.
3. Students will have grammar instruction.
4. Students will read and study other writers.
5. Students will have practice with timed writing instruction and test prompts.
6. Students will have choice when it comes to writing topics.
7. Students will write for authentic purposes and for authentic audiences.
8. Students will get meaningful feedback from their teachers and their peers.

Students often don’t get why they have to write so much. We will be teaching them the following eight reasons for writing:
1. Writing is hard, but “hard” is rewarding.
2. Writing helps you sort things out.
3. Writing helps to persuade others.
4. Writing helps to fight oppression.
5. Writing makes you a better reader.
6. Writing makes you smarter.
7. Writing helps you get into and through college.
8. Writing prepares you for the world of work.

Throughout the year we will be focusing on four types of student writing, which we describe below. All four types are essential for developing students’ writing and thinking skills.
1. Writing to Learn: Students will write everyday in a variety of modes to extend their thinking and learning about reading, history, social issues, and their own learning. Writing to learn takes such forms as:
· Note-taking
· Book Letters and reading responses
· Social Studies Skits / Drama
· Social Studies Projects
· Journal Responses to social studies topics or readings
· Graphic Organizers
· Self-Assessments
· All other writing

2. The Writer’s Notebook / Independent Writing: Students will experiment with and practice their writing on a weekly basis. We will teach students how to become independent writers, to use brainstorming techniques, and how to generate and extend ideas. This is the place where students will have the most choice and freedom.
· 5 pages per week will be due
· Mondays (60 minutes)
o 20 minutes – Writer’s Notebook Minilesson and Teacher Modeling
o 20 minutes – Independent Writing + Conferencing
o 20 minutes – Partner and Class Sharing
· Wednesdays (30 minutes)
o 5 minutes – Writer’s Notebook Check-in Minilesson
o 15-20 minutes – Independent Writing + Conferencing
o 5-10 minutes – Partner and Class Sharing
· All of this writing will be the source for larger writing projects (esp. MultiG)


3. On-Demand/Prompt Writing: Students will learn how to develop and organize clear and meaningful short essays in response to academic prompts like they will see on standardized tests, college applications, etc…
· 1 timed, on-demand essay per week (In the first quarter we will scaffold up to this, teaching how to “attack the prompts” before we get into the actual writings.). The lesson and writing assignment will usually be on Fridays for 30 minutes. This will be connected to Humanities content.
· During test-prep, this will become more intensive.

4. Extended Writing Projects: Students will go through the writing process to develop real world modes of writing in mandated discourses, such as expository, persuasive, narrative, and instructional. We will teach students the craft of writing through revision, including voice, organization, clarity of ideas, sentence fluency, presentation, and word choice. We will also teach students how to edit the conventions of their writing.
· We will have 1 – 2 extended writing projects per unit…
o A Narrative Account: Students will write a narrative account from the perspective of a turn-of-the-century immigrant as an “immigrant journal”.
o A Persuasive Essay: Students will write a persuasive essay related to the topic of war and questions about why we fight and if it’s ever worth it.
o A Functional Document: Students will write an instruction manual for sixth graders on an aspect of good test-taking.
o A Comparative Literary Analysis: Students will write a literary analysis comparing two short pieces of literature. This will be test-prep based.
o A Literary Response / Book Review: Students will write a book review or literary response to a work of historical fiction about the Holocaust.
o A Social Action Letter: Students will write a letter to someone in the community related to a civil rights issue of their choosing.
o A Multigenre Paper: The culminating writing project will be a multigenre paper of roughly 10 to 15 pages, in which students explore a social issue of their choosing.

· Minilessons and time to write for extended writing projects will take place throughout the unit, but will become more intensive toward the ends of each unit to support the completion of each unit’s performance task, which will be writing-based.