This spring my school piloted the SBAC assessment. As fourth grade teachers, we were shocked at how much writing there was. It's all computer based, and our students had very little experience writing long pieces totally on the computer in a single setting. I'm really glad I started looking around for a great writing program the year before.
About a year ago I wrote a post about my first adventures trying out Lucy Calkin's Units of Study. On the whole, my year went pretty well. I certainly felt like my professional development needs were met. It was nice to have such a highly detailed program and not have to worry as much about planning. As I read through the lessons, it was like I was observing Lucy as a teacher. This really fed my soul.
However, as the year progressed, it was clear that my students did not have the prerequisites for the type of work the program expected of them. The students that feed into my school as fourth graders come from a Reading First school. This means that in K-3 they are required to have a minimum of 90 minutes of reading instruction that is not allowed to include writing. Students who are struggling with reading have an additional 30-60 minutes of instruction outside the classroom, which also cannot include writing. The students who are still in the classroom cannot do anything above and beyond, like writing, that these struggling students might miss, so even typical students cannot be writing during this 60 minutes. After 90 minutes of Math, this leaves 30-45 minutes a day divided among Writing, Science, and Social Studies. So you can imagine how little writing instruction students get before fourth grade.
Because of this lack of writing instruction (not just lack of following the entire Units of Study program), I felt that this program became too challenging for the students. They did alright with the narrative and persuasive units, but things started to unravel with the report unit and by the time we reached the literary essay unit, I knew Lucy and I had to part ways. It is a reluctant parting, but caused me to think about what I liked about the program and what its drawbacks were. I certainly loved the high standard that the program aspired to. I love how it encouraged creativity. I will definitely continue to use the "launching", narrative and persuasive units (the narrative with little alteration and the persuasive with considerable alteration).
What I felt the program was lacking was concrete strategies for reluctant writers, particularly in the area of text organization. Yes, there were a few and they were outstanding. The students and I clung to those, like a droowning man clutches a life jacket. I love her "boxes and bullets" ideas with persuasive writing. The program also has some great "thinking starters". These few were very impressive (I could actually SEE the light bulb go on for several students when I taught these strategies), but they were not enough to compensate for the many lessons where there were no such concrete strategies given and students were just expected to be able to come up with volumes of written words.
That's why this year I went looking for a program I could pair with Calkins' to give the students more structure and strategies. Sometimes I think creativity in elementary student writing is over-rated. I know Units of Study can elevate student writing in the direction of creativity. But the push for creativity is a waste of time for students with little or no writing experience or desire. I'd rather their writing starts out as a bit formulaic at first. They can add their own creativity after that, if they are motivated to do so. So Units of Study will have to become my supplemental writing program.
The program I decided to be my primary writing instruction is Step Up to Writing, a program often used to complement Units of Study. I wish I could say that I could afford the newest Common Core-aligned version, but after breaking the bank last summer buying Calkins with my own money, I knew I couldn't pull that again. I was lucky enough to find the second edition on eBay for under $100. It was just what I was looking for.
Step Up to Writing is a high visual and organized program for teaching writing. The emphasis is on organization, particularly paragraph structure. The paragraph is the "building block" of both short response writing and multi-paragraph writing. Color-coded formulas and acronyms are used extensively in the program to emphasize paragraph organization. I have the feeling I will be making a lot of anchor charts next year. I also love that the program comes in a 3-ring binder. This allowed me to rearrange units as I felt the need.
Stay tuned to see how things go next year. It begins in about a month.
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