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4-5th Grade Writing Curriculum
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This writing course will have following outline divided into 7 or more units/weeks.
Unit 1
- Grammar: Parts of speech: Identifying nouns, pronouns, verbs.
- Writing Workshop: Introducing the Writer’s Notebook, sample notebooks, decorating personal Writer's Notebooks.
- Writing Assignments: 1. Introducing yourself in your notebook 2. Writing inspired by personal photographs and artifacts 3. Students will keep a running spelling log of commonly misspelled words and individual spelling needs.
Unit 2
- Grammar: Adjectives (demonstrative, predicate, comparative adjectives), adverbs (comparative, adverbial phrases, irregular).
- Writing Workshop: Memoir writing, collecting notebook entries using models of writing by several authors, such as Ralph Fletcher, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros.
Unit 3
- Grammar: Punctuation rules, contractions, double negatives, troublesome words.
- Writing Workshop: Memoir writing continues, collecting notebook entries using media: 1. Song lyrics, radio talk; 2. Print ads; 3. Other print.
Unit 4
- Grammar: Prepositional Phrases.
- Writing Workshop: Choosing a memoir “seed” (a project for publication) from the Writer's Notebook. One notebook entry will be taken through the entire publishing process: 1. Revisiting all entries;
2. Project selection;
3. Drafting—Adding details to a draft;
a) writing dialogue,
b) stretching a sentence,
c) adding inside / outside details (emotional and observational),
d) adding simile or metaphor.
Unit 5
- Grammar: Interjections, sentence structure (subject, predicate, dependent / independent clauses).
- Writing Workshop: Publishing process - 1. Creating “Wow” endings and meaningful titles;
2. Peer editing spelling and mechanics using grammar lessons and spelling lists;
3. Writing short bios;
4. Final copies;
5. Formal reading and presentation of finished memoir projects.
Unit 6
- Grammar: Rules of agreement, subject - verb agreement, contractions, compound subjects, indefinite pronouns.
- Writing Workshop: Focus on writing poetry - 1. Converting a memoir into a poem; 2. Writing poetry using several models
Unit 7
- Grammar: Review and exam.
- Writing Workshop: Free writing and sharing.
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