Students learn to sing the song, "A-Hunting We Will Go" with the original verses and learn to sing several new verses that support rhyming concepts. They then brainstorm pairs of rhyming words to create their own verses for the song. As a follow up activity, students can create original verses using other simple rhyming songs as a framework.

This mini unit walks students through the question/discovery process of nonfiction literature.  The first lesson encourages students to wonder while reading.  Then students research to find the answers to their questions.  They explore ways to show/write their new learning.  As a class the kids work to publish 1 or 2 classroom books on the research topic.  This is a great way to introduce the nonfiction unit and then let each student write thier own question book based on the process they used with the class book.

Do worms live underground? Are they good diggers? Can they really read and write? As students read Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm in this lesson, they learn to separate the facts from the fictional details. Students begin the lesson by brainstorming what they know about worms. They then begin examining the book in layers. Four read-aloud sessions engage students by focusing attention on different features of the text in each session. In a whole-group setting, students explore the illustrations, fictional details, nonfiction details, and captions and speech bubbles. In this way, students are given concrete strategies that they can use to help differentiate narrative and informational elements in other books they read.

This is a quick overview for teachers of the Units of Study for Writing structure (K-8). There is also reference to upcoming professional development surrounding the Units of Study for Writing. This was used for a 20 minute staff meeting presentation prior to implementing the Units of Study for Writing.

A teacher uses multiple types of formative assessment practices within writing lessons including:
-Teacher observation of student discussion (“turn and talk”)
-Questioning (why?)
-Peer assessment

A teacher uses peer feedback as a formative assessment in writing for kindergartners. They learn about areas of improvement within their writing from their peers and go back and make the revisions.

This series of eight lessons has students compare information found in fiction and non-fiction texts related to whales.  Students learn to formulate research questions, interact with an online scientist and write letters using the writing process.

In this lesson, the teacher demonstrates how to use a learning progression to assess a piece of writing and then asks the students to apply the progression to their own writing to make revisions.  The students have been writing informational texts to teach others about a topic.