Free Reproducibles
The Fundamentals of (Re)designing Writing Units Reproducibles
Prepare students to take on any writing challenge, including district- and state-mandated literacy tests. Perfect for teachers, curriculum designers, and literary coaches, this title provides guidance for designing new writing units and revising existing ones across content areas for grades 5–12. You’ll discover practical strategies and best practices for teaching skills in drafting, editing, revising, feedback, assessment, and student collaboration.
Benefits
- Examine the stages of the writing process and the benefits of teaching students to work through them.
- Assess the particular importance of the feedback stage of the writing process.
- Study the components and rationale of the backward-planning approach to unit design.
- Gain access to downloadable templates, checklists, rubrics, and student activities useful for designing a unit and guiding lessons.
- Explore comprehensive lists of online resources and tools that educators and students may use in lessons aimed at writing.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Writing Instruction Recommendations and an Introduction to Writing Types
Chapter 2: The Stages of the Writing Process and Digital Environments
Chapter 3: The Backward Planning Approach to Unit Design: KUDs and Guiding Questions
Chapter 4: The Backward Planning Approach to Unit Design: Pre- and Culminating Assessments and Criteria for Success
Chapter 5: Effective Lesson Design: The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model and Differentiation
Chapter 6: Launching the Unit
Appendix A: List of Figures and Tables
Appendix B: Professional and Student Resources
Reproducibles
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
- Figure 4.1: Sample Task Templates and Prompts
- Figure 4.2: Sample Short Story Writing Checklist
- Figure 4.5: Argumentation Writing Rubric
- Table 4.1: Determining Median and Mode
Chapter 5
- Table 5.1: Ideas for Differentiating Instruction—Readiness
- Table 5.2: Ideas for Differentiating Instruction—Learning Profile
- Table 5.3: Ideas for Differentiating Instruction—Interest
Suggested Resources
Book
Reeves, D. (2016). FAST Grading: A Guide to Implementing Best Practices. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Websites
Chapter 2
Collaborative Writing Tools and Apps
Conceptualizing Tools and Apps
Individual Writing Tools and Apps
- Blogger
- Easel.ly
- Edublogs
- Evernote
- Glogster
- Infogr.am
- Kidblog
- Microsoft OneNote
- NoodleTools
- Notability
- Piktochart
- Venngage
- Weebly
- WordPress
Online Apps and Tools News
- Alice Keeler
- EdTechTeacher
- Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
- Edutopia
- Free Technology for Teachers
- Graphite
- International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
Online Dictionaries and Thesauruses
Tools for Engaging Others
Tools for Managing Learning
Tools for Organizing, Collecting, and Archiving Work
Tools for Presenting Information
Chapter 4
- Achieve the Core
- Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) templates
- Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory rubric traits
Graphic Organizers
- edHelper.com
- Education Oasis
- Freeology
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Education Place
- Teacher Files
- TeacherVision
Resources for Calibration Protocol
- Rhode Island Department of Education’s “Calibration Protocol for Scoring Student Work: A Part of the Assessment Toolkit”
- Rhode Island Department of Education’s “Writing Calibration Protocol”
- Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity’s “Semi-Structured Calibration Activity”
Resources for Student Writing Models
- Achieve the Core
- “Appendix C: Samples of Student Writing” of the Common Core State Standards
- Brown’s Student Learning Tools
- Holt, Rinehart and Winston Writing Prompts
- LDC’s Student Work Samples
- Oregon Department of Education
- Oregon State University’s Sample Essays
- Thoughtful Learning Student Models
Chapter 5
Learning Profiles
- Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences
- Khan Academy
- Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn’s learning style dimensions
- Robert Sternberg’s analytical, creative, and practical intelligences
Resources for Differentiation
- CAST
- CAST UDL Exchange
- Free Technology Toolkit for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in All Classrooms
Appendix B
Assessment Tasks
- LDC’s “Literacy Context: Science/Writing Mode: Argumentation”
- LDC’s “Task Template Collection 3.0”
- Performance Assessment Resource Bank’s “Performance Tasks”
- Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity’s “Performance Assessment Quality Criteria”
Complex Texts
- Detroit Free Press
- Eastoftheweb
- Hippocampus
- Junior Scholastic
- Letters About Literature
- The Literature Network
- The Miami Herald
- The Moth
- National Geographic Kids
- The New York Times
- The New York Times’s Learning Network
- The New York Times Upfront Magazine
- ProCon
- Project Gutenberg
- River of Words
- Sarah Mook Poetry Contest
- Scholastic News
- Scholastic Scope
- Scholastic SuperScience
- Slate
- Storycenter
- The Sun
- Teen Ink
- Time for Kids Almanac
- USA Today
Essay Contests and Submissions
- Hippocampus
- Letters About Literature
- The New York Times’s Learning Network
- River of Words
- Sarah Mook Poetry Contest
- Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
- The Sun
- Teen Ink
- Winning Writers
General Writing Resources
- Duke (University) Thompson Writing Program
- Google differentiated search lessons
- Purdue University Online Writing Lab
- University of Washington Tacoma’s Teaching and Learning Center
- The Writing Center at UNC–Chapel Hill’s “Evidence” handout
Graphic Organizers
- edHelper.com
- Education Oasis
- Freeology
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Education Place
- Teacher Files
- TeacherVision
Organizations and Associations
- International Literacy Association
- International Literacy Association’s “Choices” reading lists
- National Council of Teachers of English
- National Writing Project
- ReadWriteThink
- Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity
Peer Review Resources
- Calibrated Peer Review
- Eli Review
- Peerceptiv
- PeerMark
- “The Reliability and Validity of Peer Review of Writing in High School AP English Classes,” C. Schunn, A. Godley, and S. DeMartino’s article in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 60(1), 13–23
Rubrics
- “Chapter 1: What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?” from Susan M. Brookhart’s How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading
- Education Northwest’s 6+1 Trait Rubrics
- Edutopia’s “Resources for Using Rubrics in the Middle Grades”
- Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything: “Assessment and Rubrics”
- LDC’s “Student Work Rubrics”
- RubiStar
- The State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s “OSPI-Developed Assessments for Social Studies”
- The University of Wisconsin–Stout’s “Rubrics for Assessment”
Scoring and Calibration
- Rhode Island Department of Education’s “Writing Calibration Protocol”
- Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity’s “Semi-Structured Calibration Activity”
Student Writing Models
- Achieve the Core’s “Student Writing Samples”
- Brown’s Student Learning Tools
- Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects:
Appendix C—Samples of Student Writing
- Holt, Rinehart and Winston’s “Holt Online Essay Scoring—Writing Prompts”
- LDC’s “Student Work Samples”
- Oregon Department of Education’s “Writing Scored Student Work—High School”
- Oregon State University: Writing 121’s “Argument” sample essays and web resources
- Thoughtful Learning’s “Student Models”
Unit and Lesson Examples
- Achieve the Core
- EngageNY
- English Language Arts Guidebook Units
- The New York Times’s Learning Network
- Project Exchange
- Reading Like a Historian
- Understanding Language Initiative’s “Persuasion Across Time and Space”
- Understanding Language Initiative’s “Persuasion Across Time and Space: Analyzing and Producing Complex Texts”