How do I write my unit paragraph?

The Writing Standards:

For this portion of the class we believe that students need to be strictly held accountable to certain standards that will help determine the grade they receive on their work. Because many students have never experienced this level of scrutiny for their writing, we are going to use the 4th grade Common Core literacy standards for writing informational or expository text. They include the following:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2

• Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2.A

• Introduce a topic clearly and group related information in paragraphs and sections; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2.B

• Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2.C

• Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases (e.g., another, for example, also, because).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2.D

• Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2.E

• Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented.

NOTE: While this may seem basic, it is important to understand that most 7th grade students who do not work toward improving their current writing habits will generally not reach a score of 2 out of 4 by the end of the school year when the class rubric is used.

How will paragraphs Be Graded?

There are only two types of informational paragraphs students will be asked to produce all year. Achievement Paragraphs, where students will describe three accomplishments of a civilization, and Biography Paragraphs, where students will describe the details and importance of an individual we have studied. Each of these units uses a 4-Point Rubric that stays the same throughout the year. These rubrics can be seen below.

Large posters on the classroom wall show the requirements students need to follow to get a score of 4 on their paragraph and can be used as the only reference during testing.

What will students see before they start writing?

This class goes out of its way to make sure that students know exactly what they are going to be expected to do. When we begin a new unit, one of the first things we will go over is what the paragraph will be about and what the writing prompt is for the next three weeks. The pages that outline the writing prompt is included in the workbook for each unit. An example can be seen below.

You can see that students are made very aware of the expectations, what the question will be, what their sentences should include, and how they will be graded. It should be also noted that the prompt they will see on the unit test is exactly the same as what is given to them at the beginning of the unit.

The Writing Process:

This portion of the page is a bit longer, but we believe it is important to give clear examples of how a student can succeed in our class. The following steps are aligned with the unit timeline on this website and can be found here. There are a few things to remember as you look through these steps:

• • Students are not asked to start writing immediately, but on day 4 of the unit.

  • They are typically only asked to write 1 sentence per day to create their paragraph. THEY HAVE OVER A WEEK TO WRITE ONE PARAGRAPH!

  • Peers and online tools are available to help them check their work.

  • They can work together with other students to write their practice paragraphs, but will have to write it themselves when they are assessed.

  • They will get an opportunity to do a practice test before they take the actual unit assessment.

  • Students will have access to over 100 example paragraphs or the unit before the test.

  • If they struggle to get a good score on the assessment, they can practice and retake it with no penalty.

We want students to succeed in our class and have worked very hard to provide every opportunity for any student that is willing to work toward that goal. Let us now get into the process.

What students have to work with:

Every unit in the class workbook has three pages for this writing process:

• • The writing prompt, outline, and rubric page.

  • The sentence outline page.

  • The practice paragraph page.

Here they are below:

You will see how we build these paragraphs over the course of a week and still give students time to review and revise their work as needed.

Sentence 1: Introduction (Unit Day 4)

After students have been introduced to the writing prompt and spent a few days getting into the unit, it is now time to start writing the paragraph! This first step is pretty straight forward and will be similar for every paragraph they write. All they need to do is introduce what their paragraph will be about. To start them off strong, students are given directions, the question, and organized steps to make sure they are hitting all parts of the rubric.

They will use their sentence outline page to complete step one above and write out their introduction sentence by answering the questions in each box.

Once that is completed, they will check their work and recheck it by either typing it out or having another student read it out loud for them. Once they are satisfied they will write out their sentence on the practice paragraph page. REMEMBER TO SKIP LINES AS YOU WRITE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR CORRECTIONS!

This process will continue for the other four steps.

Sentence 2: BODY SENTENCE (Unit Day 5)

Students continue using their directions, sentence outline, and practice paragraph page to tackle the next sentence. The steps can be seen below.

REMEMBER TO SKIP LINES AS YOU WRITE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR CORRECTIONS!

Sentence 3: BODY SENTENCE (Unit Day 6)

Students continue using their directions, sentence outline, and practice paragraph page to tackle the next sentence. The steps can be seen below.

REMEMBER TO SKIP LINES AS YOU WRITE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR CORRECTIONS!

Sentence 4: BODY SENTENCE (Unit Day 7)

Students continue using their directions, sentence outline, and practice paragraph page to tackle the next sentence. The steps can be seen below.

REMEMBER TO SKIP LINES AS YOU WRITE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR CORRECTIONS!

Sentence 5: Conclusion (Unit Day 9)

Students continue using their directions, sentence outline, and practice paragraph page to tackle the next sentence. The steps can be seen below.

REMEMBER TO SKIP LINES AS YOU WRITE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR CORRECTIONS!

The paragraph is now complete and should be used as a study tool to prepare for the unit assessment. Students will have to rewrite it from memory with as few errors as possible to get a good grade. Considering they have two weeks to write it, study, and prepare for the assessment, this is a reasonable request for any 7th grade student.

Review and ASsessment:

The last day of the second week of the unit should have students with completed practice paragraphs that can be peer reviewed in class and checked for mistakes. How we run our test reviews and both Part A and Part B of the unit assessments is tackled in another page on this website.