The brand new 3-5 Units of Study in Writing are almost here for the 2024-2025 school year! The new units are easier to use, research-based, and updated for today’s classroom. New to the units are a sequential standards-based curriculum in grammar, opportunities to tap the power of digital technologies, far more discipline-based writing, and a compendium of tools to support responsive small group instruction.
Units of Study
Each grade has 4 completely reimagined units, providing a cross-grade sequence in Information Writing, Argument, Literary Essay and Narrative.
A Guide to the Writing Workshop
An overview of the essential routines of a writing workshop that describes the writing development of the four core genres. This resource also guides teachers in establishing a classroom environment that cultivates engaged and independent writers.
Writing Pathways
Contains the assessment system for the 3–5 Units of Study in Writing. This resource also includes on-demand prompts, rubrics, checklists progressions, exemplar texts, and annotated benchmark pieces of writing, at each level for all four genres.
New! Supporting All Writers: High-Leverage Small Groups and Conferences
Ready-to-teach small groups and conferences focused on major writing goals, organized into skill progressions that range from more supportive to more advanced, so that teachers can ensure that all writers progress along a trajectory of development.
New! Grammar and Conventions
Grade-specific, 5-7 minute daily grammar lessons that integrate seamlessly with the Units of Study in Writing. Grammar instruction is sequenced so that students can apply the lessons they learn to their ongoing writing.
New! Spelling Modules: Essential Building Blocks
A series of spelling lessons that can be used for targeted small-group or whole group instruction, based on students’ needs. Lessons follow a research-based progression, are designed with a great deal of flexibility, and only take 5-10 minutes to teach.
New! Digital Experience:
Students can:
• submit writing and receive feedback digitally.
• use school devices to write, revise, and to make and watch podcasts and videos.
Teachers can:
• use optional AI-assisted technology to help provide students with support and feedback.
• leverage AI feedback to help understand patterns in students’ writing and plane supports for them.
Ensuring Access for All Writers
You will see Ensuring Access sections at the start of each session that give specific tool and strategy ideas to teach a wide range of learners. Writing, because of its visible nature, can bring to light learning needs that might not be easily seen in other forums. Whether or not students have identified learning needs, however, these sections can be extremely helpful for students.
See Supporting All Writers: High-Leverage Small Groups and Conferences, 3–5 for additional work times to meet the needs of your full range of writers.
Supporting Multilingual Learners
Each session provides supports to ensure that all Spanish-speaking students have access to the essential aspects of the curriculum. There are video previews of each minilesson in Spanish These orient children to the upcoming minilessons, teach key vocabulary words, and illustrate the work they’ll be doing. All anchor charts and teaching points are also now available in Spanish, and mentor texts in Spanish are recommended as well.
Trade Book Pack
Each Trade Book Pack includes grade-level appropriate books that teachers can use as demonstration texts to model the skills and strategies they want students to try.
Online Resources
Online Resources provide digital access to all the printed books in the core Units of Study set (Units, Guide, etc.), along with a rich array of resources to support each unit. These resources include downloadable versions of charts, handouts, book lists, exemplar texts, supports for Spanish-speaking students, and more, all arranged session-by-session to streamline each day’s preparation.