Writing
Language Arts
Parents/Guardians,
This school year, the second grade team is embarking on a brand new writing curriculum called Units of Study, from Lucy Calkins. This promises to be an engaging and in-depth way of learning not only the mechanics of good writing, but how to become a writer who produces detailed, thoughtful, and meaningful work. I am very excited to start this journey through the writing process with your children this year!
Unit 1: Lessons From the Masters | Improving Narrative Writing
Our first unit will have us studying master authors and looking at some of the techniques that they use in their books to produce meaningful writing. We will use these strategies as we write about "small moments" from our lives, expanding on them with great detail, with the goal of having our readers wrapped up in the stories so they can feel like we did as we experienced these moments ourselves.
Unit 2: Nonfiction Writing
Students will learn how to publish a piece of nonfiction writing on a self-selected topic about which they know a lot. This writing will be done with the purpose of informing readers about the topics chosen. This will give everyone a chance to feel like an expert about something, while giving them the opportunity to "show and tell" at the same time. Students will learn how to write about an area of expertise, read mentor texts in order to discover ways to write like an expert, build their explanations, hook readers' interest, and much more.
Unit 3: Writing About Reading
In this unit, students will be focusing on opinion writing--specifically about their favorite stories. They will be thinking of characters and favorite scenes from books that they have enjoyed, and how those elements have made the books so memorable. Students will be writing persuasive letters that use evidence from their texts in order to get others to pick up and read these favorite books.
Unit 4: Nonfiction Writing Projects
Our final unit of second grade writing will be broken into two main parts. In the first part, we dive back into the world of nonfiction and learn more strategies and techniques for writing these types of books. For the second part, students will learn how to pick two topics for writing a book that compares and contrasts them both!
