My school district is looking into a writing program. We do not have a formal one right now. Talk to me about yours or the one you would love to use. I couldn't find a thread on this but if there is, please guide me in that direction.
Several years ago our school adopted Literature Based Writing: a technique where the writing instruction is linked to the reading instruction. Kids study an author's style and learn to write like the author. This has a huge advantage of being cheap, require very little planning and producing excellent results. Now that our district is pushing more non-fiction reading, our students are thriving.
We connect reading and writing too, but it's our own curriculum and the kids only write informative pieces or literary responses. I wish we could let them do something creative. But connecting our reading and writing is very helpful for both subjects. If we're writing an informative piece for writing- like we did a report on animal issues- students had time to read the books during our reading block which improved the notes they took during writing.
Here's one of the activities from our program: Literature Based Writing. Fourth graders must attempt to write something that sounds just like a chapter beginning for By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They read the book as a class as part of the reading curriculum, but study the writing style and create a scoring guide that helps them when they attempt to write in the author's style: THE VISITOR The sun had not yet risen in the east, but there was still a faint glow shimmering across the vast prairie. Laura peered out of the tent and took in a sharp breath. The sky was a light blue with a faint border of crimson and gold. It looked as though the sun would come up and fill the land with love. The prairie grasses glittered in millions of tiny, sharp lights. Silver Lake had a thin layer of dew crossing over it as the spring sun tinted the lake pink. Lena and Laura hurriedly got dressed and scrambled off to the boarding shanty. Ma was there, helping Aunt Docia prepare breakfast. “Laura, would you please set the table,” Ma insisted. Obediently, Laura placed the tin cups and dishes on the white table cloth. by Daniel aged 9
