Exciting News! I will be presenting with my principal Jane Shartzer at the NESA Fall Leadership Conference in Katmandu, Nepal Oct. 21-23. Check out info about our presentation below.

Over the past 6 months I’ve been working with representatives from grades 3-5 on an implementation plan for the Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study in Writing. We met weekly to:

1. read professionally about the writer’s workshop (from a variety of sources)
2. dig deeply into each unit in the 3-5 UOS package
3. plan for spiraling the units across the 3 grades

Recently, we presented our work to the rest of the teachers.
ACS WW 3-5 Implementation Presentation

Also, our work resulted in drafts of the following documents:

• a lesson binder for the first two units including a yearly and monthly plan (sample for grade 4 available here)*
• WW essential agreements
• a framework for possible ways for us to continue collaborating next year

*Next year, we will follow these plans while being ready to change and modify them as we become more proficient at both the UOS and writer’s workshop in general. As the start up book in the series states, these units are to eventually be outgrown, with schools and grades writing and implementing their own units. For now however, our plan is to use the framework of the units (along with the transcript provided in each lesson as a support) to help us align our teaching and build a learning spiral for our students.

If you download to view or to use any of the documents shown here, please provide your comments and suggestions. This work is a process which will be revised and improved. Imput is vital. Thanks!