Mastering academic writing is difficult for students. These training modules are designed to take teachers through the intricacies of writing instruction and provide them with effective and repeatable methods for creating proficient student writers.

Scope of the training

Teachers will understand the pedagogical precepts that support sound academic writing and, more importantly, how to teach it. They will learn to move students through their compositions by degrees, beginning with short, evidence-based claims to simple paragraphing, then move into “power-paragraphing”, more complex short-form essays, and finally into multiple-paragraph and other long-form academic papers.

Once teachers are comfortable with teaching these different writing forms, we will then move into mastering, prewriting/brainstorming, assessment, and writing and lesson modification based on assessment data. As writing is an inherently social endeavor, we will also show teachers to integrate collaborative and interactive practices into the writing process. We will also get into strategies for creating powerful mentoring communities within and across schools.

These trainings are available for educators who teach early-elementary (grades 3-4), later-elementary (grades 5-6), middle school, and high school. The training modules are appropriate for educators who teach any subject area.

Time commitment

Training can take place in-person (preferred) or via Zoom webinars that can be interspersed through the school year or scheduled as intensive back-to-back sessions (after school, weekend, or summer). The sessions can be divided into five 60-minute modules or three 90-minute modules. After the initial trainings are completed, we like to conduct intermittent, follow-up sessions with the school's curriculum leaders (coaches, department chairs, APs) who could pass their new learning on to their teachers and staff.

The Modules

Module One - Orientation/Method Rationale

Looking at data discussing the statistical realities of students writing proficiency.Understanding the differences between the domains of writing and taking a deeper dive into characteristics of expository, persuasive, response-to-literature, and narrative composition.Breaking down the components of academic writing, including thesis/claim, the use of evidence, analysis and interpretation, transitions, and closing statements.Understanding the essentials of template-based writing and applying appropriate organizational structures to specific writing tasks.

Module Two - Frame Writing

Learning how components of academic writing are broken down into color-coded writing frames.Flexibility and scaffolding / Teaching students how to practice flexibility with the writing templates and how to help themselves with help content and academic sentence starters and phrases).Let’s write – Taking on the role of students, participants will construct a “power paragraph” based on an analysis of Denise Levertov’s short poem, Moon Tiger.

Module Three - Exploring the Flexibility of Writing Templates

Expanding the short response by adding engaging hooks, additional evidence, and analysis, appropriate transitions, and counterargument.Deconstructing the structure of multiple-paragraph essays and understanding how to build these templates with studentsMastering storytelling – Using frame writing to construct personal and fictional narrativesApplications for science and social studies - Discover effective strategies for addressing expository, research report writing, technical writing, and lab reportsBuilding custom templates – How to create any writing template for any situation or subject.

Module Four - Collaboration, Interaction, and the Hive

Going over the basics of the social and collaborative Hive environment (color coding, grouping, auto-commentary)Giving students the academic language they need to provide substantive, peer-to-peer feedback.Establishing mentor-based writing communities across classrooms, grade levels, and districts.Let’s Write – Food Fight - a fun and interactive writing activity that leverages the social and interactive capabilities of the Hive environment.

Module Five - Assessment and Metrics and the Lesson Library

Taking a deeper dive into rubric-based and organic assessment.Saving teachers time by filtering elements to be assessedUnderstanding metrics and how to use data to modify and differentiate instruction.

Other Areas to be Discussed

Using modified templates to differentiate writing instruction for English language learners and special needs students.Strategies for co-teaching.How administrators can participate and lead in this process