The purpose of initial guided writing is to give students an opportunity to observe and learn a specific, targeted writing skill that they can practice and incorporate into their own writing.  As students progress through their writing journey, they will participate in writer's workshop.  Within the workshop, modeled lessons are delivered focused on a specific procedure or technique. Students practice the skill with a partner or a group before trying the skill independently.  The workshop schedule ends with peer sharing and a short whole group debriefing or closing to summarize the lesson.  

In our grammar workshop, we will explore sentence boundaries using Gretchen Bernabei's strategies from her Grammar Keepers lessons.  These lessons involve incorporating grammar practice in daily journal writing, interactive dialogues that model for students how to make grammatical choices, and tracking sheets to systematically chart what we've learned. Gretchen Bernabei leads hundreds of innovative writing workshops every year across the U.S. and inspires teachers to weave grammar into authentic writing. 

“Poetry is the most undervalued resource in literacy education….reading and discussing poetry develops the imagination, exposes students to poetic language, helps readers go beyond literal meanings to consider figurative language and symbolism, and provides opportunities to enjoy the rhythms and rhymes of language” (p. 151). (Serafini & Serafini-Youngs, 2006). In this 3 week unit, students and teachers become immersed in the reading and writing of poetry. Teachers flood the classroom with poetry books and provide many opportunities for students to read and deeply reflect on meaning, learn about elements of poetry, try out different forms of poetry writing,