English & Language Arts
English & Language Arts education should weave together the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening so that students develop various modes of communication that will be integral to their academic and personal lives.
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Therefore, ELA time in my classroom will focus on developing literacy through explicit instruction, writing blocks that teach students how to produce and publish quality writing, and continued practice with listening and speaking for phonological awareness and fluency.
Genre
Student will learn about genre as it pertains to their own writing and reading. Common genres for elementary writing (opinion, personal narrative, and non-fiction) will be explicitly taught and practiced throughout the year. While specifics of each genre will vary by grade, each will be generally taught using the standards and features listed below.
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Opinion Writing
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Also called "persuasive writing"
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Includes a claim, reasons, and evidence
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Asks students to synthesize background information with their opinion
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Requires explicit instruction on the structure of opinion writing, as well as the three main components of an opinion piece
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Personal Narrative
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A true, personal story from a student's life
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Includes dialogue, character actions, time words, a beginning/middle/end structure, and sensory details
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Requires explicit instruction on the above, as well as what constitutes an exciting personal narrative
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Non-Fiction
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Requires background knowledge and research
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Students will be taught about vetting and citing sources and information responsibly
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Also requires explicit instruction on organizing a non-fiction piece to make sense
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Language & Spelling
Students will have the opportunity to focus on writing craft, as well as spelling and mechanics. Students do not need to be able to spell to write, but spelling difficulties lead into an "inevitable loss of verbal power" (Sedita, 2022).
Therefore, spelling and phonics instruction will be explicitly taught, bolstering students encoding and decoding skills through structured whole and small group instruction that includes phonemic awareness, letter sounds, digraphs/blends, and other spelling patterns.
Decodable phonics do not account for all words that students will encounter, but will unlock the skills they need to spell over 80% of words in the English language.
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Sedita, Joan. The Writing Rope : A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects, Brookes Publishing, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/detail.action?docID=7054424.
The Writing Workshop
The Writing Workshop is a process in which students go through multiple weeks learning new writing skills following the structure below:
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Whole Group Mini-Lesson
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Individual Conferencing
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Independent Writing Time
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Share Writing in Partner Groups
This format follows an "I do, we do, you do" model of gradual release, which gives students the opportunity to see a skill modeled, practice as part of a large group, then apply the skill independently. The last two skills we cover are editing and revising, after which students type and publish a final piece. On the left, you can see an example of a student piece during our publishing party, where students can give and receive compliments on their work, and we celebrate all of their hard work.