UNITS OF STUDY OVERVIEW
You may have heard a little about Lucy Calkins during curriculum night, but you may still have questions. Lucy Calkins has been a prominent name in the education community for decades. Her ideology and writing strategies are renown across the education community and have been proven to help students become lifelong writers.
Each lesson consists of a mini lesson which shares a strategy which helps students work towards an end product. After this teacher directed lesson, students then get time to practice this strategy through an active engagement activity. In writing this would look like applying a new writing strategy with their own writing. In reading this would take shape in students using a new comprehension strategy during their own reading. While students are working within the active engagement stage, teachers have the opportunity to confer with individual students and or small groups to work on specific skills, extend thinking or address areas of need. At the end of each lesson, students will share what they learned with the class or with their partner. The class ends with a homework assignment which builds on the work done in class.
While these lessons still following the traditional literacy framework students are use to, the main difference is the amount of teacher focused instruction. Unit of Studies lessons are designed to give students more time to actively engage in the writing process and provides teachers with more time to work in small groups of students addressing their specific needs. In the three years I have seen this program in action, I have seen a vast positive change in the quality and quantity of student writings as well as their response to what they read.
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Want to learn more? Check out these sites and videos :
http://www.unitsofstudy.com/middleschoolwriting/
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