Step Up to Writing Resources
I am one of four Academic English teachers at my site. We all use Read 180/System 44 as our primary curriculum, but our school is also implementing Step Up to Writing this year. (This is my first year working with Step Up to Writing, but it seems very similar to the Jane Schaffer Writing Method which I used when I taught high school.) In December 2016, our team worked with Step Up to Writing Coach Suzie Smith to create an implementation plan customized to meet the needs of our struggling readers, English learners, and students with learning disabilities while also complementing our Read 180/System 44 station-rotation curriculum.
We decided to teach one Step Up to Writing lesson per week. In each lesson, the class will read a news article from a publisher such as NewsELA, complete a Frayer Model vocabulary card, and then learn a Step Up to Writing strategy. We incorporated the gradual release of responsibility instructional framework into our lesson sequence. We plan to spend two weeks on each strategy and assess students' learning on the second week.
Our planning document, complete with simple lesson plans and learning goals, is linked and embedded below. Links to the vocabulary card, summary paragraph handout, and rubric are also available.
We decided to teach one Step Up to Writing lesson per week. In each lesson, the class will read a news article from a publisher such as NewsELA, complete a Frayer Model vocabulary card, and then learn a Step Up to Writing strategy. We incorporated the gradual release of responsibility instructional framework into our lesson sequence. We plan to spend two weeks on each strategy and assess students' learning on the second week.
Our planning document, complete with simple lesson plans and learning goals, is linked and embedded below. Links to the vocabulary card, summary paragraph handout, and rubric are also available.