4th grade Instructional Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

Writing Grades 2-5 Writing to Learn, Analytical and Process Writing

Critical Actions for Educators

“Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers”- Steven Speilberg Writing is a complex skill: Writing is an essential skill for students. Writing also benefts reading. The word level of writing reinforces the phonological, orthographic and morphological vocabulary awareness. Comprehension improves when students write using reading sources for responding to text. Writing components are like reading with both lower level foundational skills and higher level conceptual composition skills. Both are needed for skilled written expression. All of the cognitive demands suggest that writing is the quintessential mental juggling act.

Simple View of Writing ● Foundational Writing: skills

necessary to transcribe or encode words in to the written symbols

● Composition: formulating and

expression ideas with organization vocabulary and syntax.

Writing to Learn:

● Graphic organizers ● Taking notes ● Short answers ● Summaries ● Explanations of

real-world applications ● Opinions or arguments Analytical Writing Skills: ● Summarizing

(LETRS 2019 U8 pp 233-234)

● Synthesis of idea ● Comparing and contrasting text,

Writing to Learn is a way to facilitate comprehension of reading and writing for a real purpose. Comprehension of text is supported by writing during learning as well as fuency with academic language and vocabulary. Activities that support writing to learn are: 1) Graphic organizers for taking notes 2) Answering questions short answers, 3) Summarizing information, 4) Explanations of how new information can be applied 5) Takinga position on opinions or arguments and defending with relevant information. In Analytical Writing , students write about what they read supporting their ideas, inferences and conclusions with text evidence. The purpose of analytical writing is to help students have more time with critical thinking using text. Research shows that writing about a text is a powerful way of improving student reading achievement (Graham and Hebert, 2010). Successful Analytical Writing: ● Annotating text (circling, underlining words and phrases) ● Writing questions and unfamiliar vocabulary ● Use of graphic organizers to “mind map” information ● Rereading of small chunks of text for clarifcation and citation ● Collaborative conversations

characters, ideas, etc. ● Citing of ideas ● Writing often for a variety of purposes ● Writing for stamina and fuency ● Analyze the Prompt ● State a clear topic, opinion or argument ● Cite text evidence ● Organize by grouping related ideas or information together using linking words and phrases. ● Provide a strong conclusion.

Analytical Writing Routine: