Writing

The primary goal of the literacy program at Huckleberry is for students to become proficient readers and writers who enjoy literate lives and have the skills and strategies to become life-long readers and writers. Our program relies on students, teachers, and parents all working together towards this goal.

Third grade literacy instruction at Huckleberry Hill School is designed to embed the Common Core State Standards in a balanced literacy approach to reading, writing, word study, and speaking and listening. Using a workshop approach teachers facilitate a learning environment that helps each student access the Common Core State Standards and grow to appreciate the value of a literate life.

Writing occurs throughout the day in all areas of the curriculum, including the content areas. Formal instruction occurs in narrative, nonfiction or informative/explanatory, and persuasive or opinion. Students develop spelling skills, semantic knowledge, and writing mechanics which they apply daily in their writing. The instructional model of writers' workshop gives children the opportunity to draft, revise, and edit their own writing pieces as they practice a strategy or skill taught by the teacher in a focused mini-lesson. Assessment is ongoing and is used to guide instruction of the class and individual students. Such assessment includes analyzing students’ journal writing and responses to writing prompts.

Units of Study:

Third grade students are engaged in writing through implementation of the following units of study:

• • Crafting True Stories

  • The Art of Information Writing

• • Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions, and Editorials

  • Once Upon a Time; Adapting and Writing Fairytales

During writing workshop students develop the skills to be effective writers. They learn to:

Pre-Write:

• • Orally explain thoughts, feelings, etc.

  • Use visuals to generate ideas

  • Use literature to generate ideas

  • Generate ideas for writing in groups and independently

  • Use free-writing to develop fluency and ideas

  • Use reference materials to gather information for writing

  • Plan a piece of writing

  • Use a variety of graphic organizers when planning (web, outline, list, etc.)

Draft:

Content/Organization:

• • Use different purposes for writing: narrative, informative/explanatory, opinion

  • Think about who will read their work

  • Write a piece on a given topic

  • Select an appropriate title for a piece of writing

  • Write in complete sentences

  • Stay on topic

  • Develop supporting details for a topic

  • Write a rough draft with fluency

  • Maintain a logical sequence of events

  • Organize written pieces into beginning/introduction, middle, and end/conclusion.

  • Develop a sequential and logical pattern for a written piece

  • Write about content areas of the curriculum

  • Reread the draft

Style:

• • Expand simple sentences with adjectives and adverbs

  • Write complete sentences

  • Vary sentence structure

  • Use a variety of words to develop richness of vocabulary

  • Use originality and creativity in writing

  • Begin to develop clarity and preciseness of language

  • Use appropriate details in description

Revise:

• • Read their own work aloud to others for response

  • Clarify meaning, expand word choice, or add details (with help)

  • See work as a product that can be changed and improved

  • Remodel sentences and paragraphs

  • Use reference resources when revising, such as a dictionary and a thesaurus

  • Restructure a piece with a specific focus (with help)

  • Consider responses of the teacher and/or peers when revising

  • Use the information from teacher/peer conferences to help revise a piece of writing

Edit:

• • Correct for capitalization and punctuation

  • Correct for spelling

  • Proofread their own writing for legibility

  • Correct fragments and run-on sentences (with help)

  • Use correction symbols appropriate to grade level

  • Work cooperatively in pairs

  • Indent paragraphs

  • Use margins appropriately

  • Proofread for clarity

Publish:

• • Write legibly in manuscript and cursive (after instruction and practice)

  • Use technology to produce final written products

Students continue to develop and improve their writing skills by writing their own stories and by using a variety of writing strategies. Students also complete different kinds of writing such as poetry, realistic fiction, opinion pieces, and shared research.

How can parents/guardians help their children with writing?

Children can write letters to relatives who live far away. They can write “thank you” notes for gifts. They can write grocery lists. They can be encouraged to write in a diary or writer’s notebook. They can keep a journal at home, write poems, and share with the family.

Spelling and Word Study

Word study is a critical, daily component of literacy instruction for third grade students. This time of day is allocated for teaching phonics, spelling, and vocabulary. Teachers use SRA’s Open Court Reading Foundational Skills lessons and materials to instruct students. This approach is different from the traditional “Friday spelling tests.” Instead the focus is on learning how to appropriately utilize important, high frequency words in students’ everyday writing, as well as studying word patterns in an explicit and systematic way. Instead of weekly lists of words to memorize, our program emphasizes the learning of important words, not for a Friday test, but for a lifetime of spelling in the real world – that is, spelling correctly in writing.

Furthermore, lessons will transition students from phonics instruction in grade two to word analysis instruction. In addition, students will expand their knowledge of creating new words through the study of base words, roots, and affixes. Instruction will further students’ systematic learning of the six syllable types of English to decode and write multisyllabic words.

During a word study session, the teacher will often begin with a small group “mini-lesson”. The teacher will then scaffold instruction with guided practice. Students will be provided with time to apply the concepts taught in partnerships. Finally, students will apply these lessons independently in their reading and writing. The goal of word study instruction is for students to transfer these phonics, spelling, and vocabulary skills into their independent reading and writing.

Handwriting

In third grade, students continue to review and improve their manuscript writing. Over the course of third grade, they also learn how to write the cursive letters (both uppercase and lowercase). Cursive writing is integrated into the curriculum, and students begin to write sentences and short pieces in cursive.

How can parents help their children with handwriting?

Parents should expect their children’s work to be legible. They can encourage them to be neater and praise them when their papers are neat and legible.