March - Best Writing Strategy

In 2005 our district adopted a writing curriculum called Step Up to Writing. I love this program and totally believe in their simple tools. This curriculum teaches the basic steps to developing solid paragraphs through complete sentences with topic sentences, important details, reason/details/facts and conclusions. Kindergarten teachers start their morning routine with a letter written to their classes using the step up model about what they will be doing that day. First grade works with complete sentences, transition words, and developing five sentences paragraphs. At the second grade level our goal is to have most of our students leaving second grade with the ability to develop an eight sentence structured paragraph. By the time a child is in fourth grade, they are writing five paragraph papers with topic and conclusion paragraphs. This curriculum builds a solid foundation for writing throughout the years. I feel that the continuous building with shared language is what our students need. They are more focused on the content of their paper rather than the structure. As a kids I remember the stress that accompanied writing. I always knew what I wanted to report, but the structure of the paper made me feel uncomfortable. Step Up to Writing is helping our students become solid writers. This anchor chart is not from Step Up, but I feel that it does a great job of explaining how writing can be set up!