GSU Blogger - Dr. Sauers
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Suggestions for School-wide Writing Programs
I've already posted on a different topic this week but found myself needing some more suggestions on something else. A teacher and I are looking for some good (inexpensive) school wide writing programs that will help our students from K through 5th with constructed response and other types of writing. This can be in any format-computer program, professional development, workbook, or something new and innovative. She and I have been doing research for about two weeks. Everything I've found has been expensive. Everything she's found hasn't quite covered our whole school. Just a quick answer, if you are using something that works well at your school. Thanks.
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Kim, I know it's a high school example, but year ago the school I was working began to incorporate Writing-to-Learn strategies. Maybe something like this would be a more organic approach for you; here's a link to some information --> http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop2d.cfm.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much. I will check it out.
DeleteKim,
ReplyDeleteWe use Writing to Win out of IGA with Dr. Warren Coombs. It has been very effective for us and it is designed to help with constructed responses. I first found out about it from a Middle Georgia RESA PD. The website is - http://www.writingtowin.com/.
Thanks for your suggestion. I will definitely look into it.
DeleteHi Kim!
ReplyDeleteWe invested this year in the Traits writing curriculum by Ruth Culham, and it is AMAZING. It is pretty pricey (at least by our standards as a tiny school on a shoestring budget)-- about $6,000 for the complete K-8 set. Compared to other curricula out there though, that's a reasonable price.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ruth-culham-writing-program/#.VqVFg1MrK9Y
A "shortcut" you could take would be to just use the two teacher resource books that Ruth Culham published before the comprehensive curriculum ever existed. The books are chock full of easy-to-implement activities. I used them last year and saw huge gains in my students' writing:
http://smile.amazon.com/Traits-Writing-Complete-Guide-Grades/dp/0439280389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453672033&sr=8-1&keywords=traits+writing
http://smile.amazon.com/Traits-Writing-Complete-Primary-Grades/dp/0439574129/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453672033&sr=8-2&keywords=traits+writing
A free option we used in the past, before we could afford a full curriculum, was the Oakland Writes project. They have rubrics, exemplars, unit plans, templates, and more all FOR FREE! And their assessments (called PWAs) include 1-2 weeks of lesson plans. It is pretty darn comprehensive for a free resource!
http://www.oaklandwrites.org/
If you're willing to piece things together a bit, Ralph Fletcher, Simon Basher, and Keri Smith all make some really cool and different supplemental resources for writing instruction. Here are a few:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/17OMJLHPKKQ9/ref=cm_wl_list_o_5?
Finally, some colleagues at other schools have raved about the Lucy Calkins Units of Study series. I'm going to venture a guess that it's pretty expensive though. :)
http://www.heinemann.com/unitsofstudy/writing/default.aspx
Hope that's helpful! Let us know what you end up going with and how you like it!
Thanks, Jen. That gives me some great help. I'm going to look into all of it!
ReplyDeleteMy response is a bit different, but I'm wondering if some of the classes have considered starting a class blog? It allows students to write for an AUTHENTIC audience and it can be quite the motivator. I'm sharing an email from an instructional coach from Phoenix who I worked with 3-4 years ago. Her elementary school students now have amazing blogs that are read around the world! Here is her (Tracy Watanabe) response to a question I had asked her...
ReplyDeleteNick is absolutely right, we encourage our classrooms to engage in the Student Blogging Challenge and quadblogging. For professional development, we also offer the Teacher Blogging Challenge as a face-to-face/blended option and an online option.
Student
Blogging Challenge
Teacher
Blogging Challenge
Quadblogging
100 Word Challenge
Here are a few elementary classroom examples:
Mrs. Hamman (was 5th grade, went to 3rd grade for the past two years, now back to 5th grade)
Mrs. Moore -- 3rd grade
Ms. Myers -- 3rd grade
Mrs. Barrett -- 2nd grade (she's new to blogging)
Mrs. Rabe -- Kindergarten (another teacher who is new to blogging)
Mrs. Goucher -- 5th grade (her blog is mainly ran by the students)
You can also look at our entire directory of blogs from our main site.
Do you have any specific questions? I'd be happy to help.
Kind regards,
Tracy