Implementation

Support for Teachers  |  Students as Writers  |  Using with Making Meaning
Using with SIPPS  |  Assessment Tools  |  Workshop Offerings

The Being a Writer program is a yearlong curriculum designed to serve as the writing component of a literacy program. Built into the program is significant support for teachers and for students as writers.

Basal Programs

The Being a Writer program is a stand-alone writing program that can replace or supplement the writing component of any basal series. Unlike many language arts programs that often separate grammar, usage, and punctuation from the real act of writing, the Being a Writer program teaches these skills using students’ own writing, after they have had ample time to draft their ideas. Students’ motivation to learn skills and conventions grows out of their desire to communicate clearly with their reader in a published piece.

Writer’s Workshop

The Being a Writer program is inspired in part by the writer’s workshop concept that has been adopted by many districts and sites. The process of writing is not only choosing a topic, creating a draft, sharing, and revising, but also learning the craft of experienced authors who develop an idea or tell a story. The program is about teaching kids to communicate meaning and enjoy it.

6+1 Trait® Writing Framework

The goals of the Being a Writer program correlate closely with those of the 6+1 Trait Writing framework, developed by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. In this widely used framework, student writing is formatively assessed through seven distinct characteristics of writing. The framework is a tool that provides teachers and students with a common language to discuss good writing and rubrics to assess the quality of writing. The Being a Writer program uses its own language to help teachers and students understand and assess good writing. At the same time, each of the 6+1 Traits are addressed in numerous ways throughout the program.

The Being a Writer program provides ways to monitor students’ writing and social development over time. Three kinds of assessment help teachers make informed decisions about instruction.

Professional development can help teachers develop techniques that enhance their students’ ability to make sense of text.

Although the Being a Writer program can replace or supplement the writing component of any basal series, it is most effective when taught in conjunction with the Making Meaning program, a K–8 reading comprehension program also developed by Developmental Studies Center.

Good phonics instruction is an integral part of writing instruction. In grades K–2, teachers can use the SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) program to support the work in the Being a Writer program.