Instructional routine • Explore and learn Preview the example text with students and read aloud the writing assignment as they follow along. Have students restate the assignment in their own words to check their understanding of the expectations. Read aloud the Student Model with students once through as they listen. Then, have students re-read the text, prompting them to identify where different aspects of the assignment appear in the piece (e.g., “Where is the support for the opinion statement?”). Ensure students can connect the writing expectations to the examples in the Student Model. • Practice Check in with students as they move through the steps of the writing process. Have students meet in pairs to discuss their planning, share drafts, and make revisions. Remind students that the writing process is one based on revision and that mistakes are part of getting to a final draft. Students may be nervous to share their written work. Facilitate a supportive classroom environment so that they feel safe sharing. • Communicate Have children discuss each step of the writing process in pairs. This will help them generate and expand their ideas. Encourage students to ask each other questions about their writing and to provide feedback. Give students sentence frames as needed to support communication about writing. • Assess Monitor and collect student writing at all stages of the process. This will help you gather ongoing data about their progress. Use what you observe in their writing to inform small group instruction and student pairings. Writing skills often develop after listening, reading, and speaking skills (Robinson, 2015). This is especially true for developing readers and multilingual learners (MLs), whose written expression skills are just beginning to emerge. As a result, it is essential to provide direct instruction in the writing process. In each unit of Connect, the Writing activities expose students to narrative, opinion, and informational texts, which they read and analyze. Students consider the elements that pertain to each genre and then work through the writing process to write a text of their own. Each activity includes a plan, draft, revise, and edit stage. Planning documents that correspond with specific writing activities are provided and students learn how to structure written texts. They also learn routines they can apply to writing tasks across content areas and how to revise and edit their work for grammar and punctuation. References Robinson, Kristina. “Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing.” Colorín Colorado, 1 Dec. 2015, www. colorincolorado.org/article/improving-writing-skills-ellsand-joy-writing. WRITING Txxxvi
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjUyNzA0NQ==