Units of Study in Opinion / Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing 6-8
Delivery Method
Imprint
Heinemann
"At the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, we have been working for three decades to develop, pilot, revise, and implement state-of-the art curriculum in writing. We have had a chance to do this work under the influence of Common Core for the past few years, and this series—this treasure chest of experiences, theories, techniques, tried-and-true methods, and questions—will bring the results of that work to you."
— Lucy Calkins
Built on the best practices and proven frameworks developed over decades of work in thousands of classrooms across the country and around the world, the Units of Study for Teaching Writing, 6–8, offer grade-by-grade plans for teaching state-of-the-art writing workshops that help students meet and exceed rigorous global standards.
The Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, 6–8 will:
- help you teach opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing with increasing complexity and sophistication
- unpack standards as you guide students to attain and exceed those expectations
- foster high-level thinking, including regular chances to synthesize, analyze, and critique
- develop and refine strategies for writing across the curriculum
- support greater independence and fluency through intensive writing opportunities
- include strategic performance assessments to help monitor mastery and differentiate instruction
- provide a ladder of exemplar texts that model writing progressions across grade levels, K–8
- give teachers opportunities to teach and to learn teaching while receiving strong scaffolding and on-the-job guidance.
Series Components
- Three Units of Study per grade level, 6–8: Include all the teaching points, minilessons, conferences, and small group work for a comprehensive workshop curriculum.
- A Guide to the Common Core Writing Workshop: Describes the essential principals, methods, and structures of effective writing workshop instruction. (Now available for separate purchase: Ideal for principals, curriculum coordinators, coaches, and other who are supporting teachers as they implement Units of Study.)
- 6–8: Contains additional units to support and extend instruction and to prepare students for work in the main units as needed.
- Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, Grades K–5 and 6–8: A powerful assessment system offering learning progressions, performance assessments, student checklists, rubrics, and leveled writing exemplars. (Also available in a K–8 edition for separate purchase: Ideal for principals, curriculum coordinators, coaches, and other who are supporting teachers as they implement Units of Study.)
- Online Resources for Teaching Writing: offers downloadable, printable files for the anchor charts, figures, student exemplars, homework assignments, and checklists in every session as well as digital files for resources provided in Writing Pathways, including Writing Progressions, On-Demand Writing Prompts, Rubrics, and Student Writing Samples.
- Online Spanish translations of student resources including writing samples to use with Writing Pathways, student checklists, Anchor Chart Sticky Notes, and numerous other classroom materials such as daily charts, folders, and parent letters. Also included are lists of Spanish-language mentor texts.
- Online Video Orientations
Authors
Lucy Calkins is the author of the popular firsthand classroom materials Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3–5, as well as several companion resources for literacy coaches and principals. Most recently, Lucy has published a curriculum for the reading workshop, Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades 3-5, and she has written the Common Core Reading & Writing Workshop series for Grades K–8.
In addition, Lucy is the author or coauthor of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including Pathways to the Common Core;The Art of Teaching Writing; and One to One. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading.
She is the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University's Teachers College. For more than twenty-five years, the Project has been both a think tank–developing state of the art teaching methods–and a provider of professional development. In these capacities, the Project has supported hundreds of thousands of educators.
As the leader of this world renowned organization, Lucy works closely with policy-makers, superintendents, district leaders and school principals to instigate and sustain school-wide and system-wide educational reforms. But above all, Lucy works closely with teachers and with their classrooms full of wise and wonderful children.
Lucy is also the Richard Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, where she leads the Literacy Specialist program.
Lucy and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan.
Writing Workshop Videos
In these 75-minute video courses, Calkins and her colleagues speak directly to teachers at a particular grade level, giving you their best current knowledge about all the things you most need to know in order to have a successful year teaching Units of Study in Writing. Expect to learn TCRWP's thoughts for your grade-level's year long curriculum and for ways to adapt the units based on your writers' prior experiences. Expect, too, a brief intensive on essential methods for teaching writing, on ways to use—and not use—the spiral units, and an overview of key units for your grade level.
Watch Lucy Calkins and practicing teachers working with students during a writing workshop
Opinion / Argument Writing
- Whole Class Instruction in Opinion Writing: Teaching for Transfer as Students Move Between Persuasive Speeches and Petitions 3-5
- Introducing a Class to Text-based Debate (3-5)
- A Writing Conference: Teaching a Student to Write for Audience (3-5)
- Teaching Students to Examine Craft Moves and Author’s intent in Mentor Persuasive Essay in Order to Support Revision (5-8)
- Assessing Endings to Persuasive Essays in Order to Clarify Expectations and Inform Essay Revisions (5-8)
Informative / Explanatory Writing
- Using a Learning Progression to Help Students Work Towards Clear Goals as they Lift the Level of Their Information Writing (K-2)
- Whole Class Instruction to Teach Students to Use Domain- Specific Vocabulary Within Information Writing (K-2)
- Whole Class Instruction to Teach Students to Reread their Information Texts (3-5)
- Whole Class Instruction: Teaching Students to Organize Information Texts to Support a Claim (5-8)
Narrative Writing
- Providing and then Withholding Scaffolding to Support one Child’s Early Understanding of Narrative Structure (K-2)
- Small Group Work in Writing to Support Students Developing a Sense of Closure (K-2)
- Teaching Students to Study Spelling Patterns and to Transfer This to Their Own Writing (K-2)
- Assessment-Based Conferring to Raise the Level of Narrative Writing so the Writer can Convey Events Precisely (3-5)
- Peer Conferring: Students Teach Each Other to Revise in Order to Orient their Readers (3-5)
- Whole Class Instruction in Studying Author’s Craft and Intent: Reading a Mentor Text so Writers Learn Literary Technique (5-8)
- An Ensuing Conference: Providing Critical Feedback to Raise Standards (5-8)
- Whole Class Instruction: Fantasy Writers Develop Setting (5-8)
Component Information
3 grade-specific units of study
- Are organized around the three types of writing mandated by the Common Core—argument, information, and narrative writing
- Lay out six weeks of instruction (16–18 sessions) in each unit
- Include all of the teaching points, minilessons, conferences, and small-group work needed to teach a comprehensive workshop curriculum
- Model Lucy and her colleagues’ carefully crafted teaching moves and language
If... Then... Curriculum: Assessment-Based Instruction, Grades 6–8
- Offers nine alternate units of study
- Presents if/then conferring scenarios that support targeted instruction and differentiation
Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, 6–8
- Is organized around a 6–8 learning progression across argument, information, and narrative writing
- Includes performance assessments, student checklists, rubrics, and leveled writing exemplars
A Guide to the Common Core Writing Workshop, Grades 6–8 crystallizes the essential principles, methods, and structures of effective writing workshop instruction.
The Resources for Teaching Writing CD-ROM provides unit-specific print resources to support your teaching throughout the year.
The Up the Ladder books are designed for children in grades 3–6 who may not yet have had many opportunities to practice writing narrative, information, and opinion pieces, or might not have had those experiences in workshop-style classrooms. The units give these children opportunities to engage in repeated successful practice and to move rapidly along a gradually increasing progression of challenges.
The Up the Ladder Units:
- give novice writers intense writing practice within a short timeframe
- teach foundational primary-grade strategies through content, topics, and mentor texts that are appropriate for grades 3–6
- include concise, accessible student checklists and guidelines for daily assessment
- support teachers with an introduction to the workshop framework and writing process, tips and strategies for classroom management, and video demonstrations of the minilessons
- engage young people in work that is demanding yet attainable
- ensure that students make rapid and dramatic progress toward grade-level writing work.
While the Up the Ladder units are designed to be precursors to the grade-level Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing, 3–6, they can be helpful in a variety of instructional settings.
Series Components
Three Up the Ladder Units (19-22 sessions in each)
- Narrative
- Information
- Opinion
A Guide to the Up the Ladder Units orients you to the Up the Ladder books, providing guidance on the essential principles, methods, and structures of effective writing workshop instruction.
Online Resources
- Downloadable charts, paper-choice templates, samples of student work, student checklists
- Links to digital texts
- QR code links at point-of-use within each minilesson with demonstration videos featuring TCRWP Staff Developers
Large-format preprinted Anchor-Chart Sticky Notes with illustrated teaching points help teachers create and evolve anchor charts across each unit.
Virtual Samples
