Writing
Adopted Program: Step Up to Writing, Sopris West Publishing, Adopted 1998
Step Up to Writing is a collection of writing strategies that meets diverse student needs. Providing explicit, research-based instructional support, the strategies lead to increased writing proficiency across all grade levels and for all learners.
Step Up:
- Teaches Multiple Genres (narrative, expository, personal narrative, compare/contrast, persuasive, and many more)
- Connects Reading and Writing – strategies such as taking notes, marking text, summarizing, responding to text.
- Incorporates the Six Traits of Writing
- Increases Content-Area Success – students learn to “Write Across the Curriculum” with writing strategies that can easily be infused into content-area classes.
Descriptive Brochure on Step-Up to Writing
A very nice brochure explaining the Step-Up to Writing Program
State Standards for Writing
Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements for Writing
State Writing Assessments
From OSPI, a description of the 4th, 7th, and high school writing assessment. Includes Sample Assessment Booklets with Prompts
OSPI Writing Resources
Includes writing scoring guides and Writing Scoring Support Materials
WRITING RESOURCES
Writer's Toolkit
This is an excellent resource for young writers. It has tools to help with getting started, character and plot development, writing dialogue, and much more….even a games section.
BioCube
Students print a guide sheet, complete research, and then type their findings online. The result is a "BioCube" of a person's life. Results are printable. Great tool to summarize a person's life after reading or before writing a biography or autobiography.
Scholastic Writing
Scholastic site with lesson plans. Click on Language Arts and see hundreds of lessons.
Scholastic Timely Topics
Resources that promote writing across subject areas and cover everything from grammar basics to narrative writing instruction.
The Six Traits of Writing +1
The Six Traits of Writing provides a common language for teachers and students to communicate about their writing. This site has trait definitions, research, lesson plans, prompts and scoring tools. From Education Northwest.
The Literate Learner: Six Traits Interactive Site
Trait Explanations, Rubrics for Scoring, Examples for all the traits. The Examples section show writing samples at the advanced level, the acceptable level and the unacceptable level. A great site.
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
Free online English usage rules….Grammar Rules, Punctuation Rules, Capitalization Rules, Commonly Confused Words, and more.
University of Illinois Grammar Handbook
The Handbook is a great tool for finding rules regarding parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.), Phrases, Clauses, Sentences and Sentence Elements and Common Usage Problems
Stufun Kid Friendly Grammar and Dictionary
Interactive site for Grammar in a very kid friendly approach. Check out the game section.
FunBrain Spelling
The computer will give you 20 sets of 4 words. Your task is to find the one spelled wrong, check it, and spell it correctly. Get all 20 correct and get your name on the leader board.
Musical Spelling Rules
Let the musical spelling songs help learn spelling rules.
Rules for Spelling
Numerous Spelling Resources…from Parent Spelling Ideas to Study Guides and Strategies