Teaching Heart & Soul
3rd Grade Writing Curriculum
3rd Grade Writing Curriculum
This 3rd grade writing curriculum starts with the yearlong scope & sequence, continues with daily lesson plans and worksheets, and includes supplemental practice resources. This curriculum emphasizes differentiation to meet the needs of all students.
As a curriculum developer, I took the Common Core state standards to create a yearlong scope & sequence to make sure all standards were addressed. Then, I developed each week, creating lesson plans, modeling pages for teachers, and student worksheets. To support all students, I created differentiated worksheets and/or practice resources to help students develop remedial skills.
Audience: 3rd Grade Writing Teachers
Responsibilities: Curriculum Development, Page Design
Tools Used: PowerPoint
The Problem
Educators need to address specific yearly standards with their students, including various writing standards. Many schools and states use the Common Core State Standards. Creating a structured curriculum that effectively progresses through these writing standards can be challenging for teachers, as they aim to build upon prior skills in an organized manner.
The Solution
The solution to this problem was to create a year-long writing curriculum that was organized, built upon prior skills, and covered all of the Common Core standards related to writing. To meet all students’ needs, the curriculum includes differentiated resources that further support student success.
All daily worksheets have a scaffolded version, which requires less reading. Reference pages and posters will serve as helpful visual aids, and bookmarks will provide students with a quick reference guide. Additionally, task cards and additional practice pages will give students ample opportunity to practice restating the question using complete sentences.
Scope & Sequence
First, I created a yearlong scope & sequence, based on the Common Core state standards for 3rd grade writing.
Lesson Overview
I created the lesson structure to use throughout the curriculum, including a lesson plan, teacher modeling pages for the “I Do” and “We Do” sections of the “I Do, We Do, You Do” method. I also included worksheets and answer keys for each day as well as reference posters for the skills of the week.
Differentiation is discussed in this overview and includes reference posters, bookmarks, task cards, and practice worksheets.
Lesson Plans & Teaching Script
Each lesson plan includes the lesson objectives, Common Core state standards, materials needed, the lesson hook (if applicable), background information needed, the formative assessment (usually the worksheet), the summative assessment (usually the last day’s worksheet or final essay), differentiation strategies, and the I Do, We Do, and You Do steps.
The teaching script gives teachers an easy-to-follow script so that they touch on all of the important information for the lesson.
Model Pages (I Do/We Do)
There are modeling pages for each day for the “I Do” and “We Do” portions of the lesson. Each modeling page has an answer key to make it easier for teachers to check that what they’re teaching is accurate.
Student Worksheets with Differentiation
Each worksheet includes the directions with a self-check checklist to make sure students include everything they need in their work.
Scaffolded worksheets are also included for students who need more support.
Answer keys are included for worksheets as well.
Reference Pages & Posters
Each week’s skills include reference pages and posters to hang in the classroom for students to refer back to as they practice each skill.
Supplemental Materials
Each week’s focus was broken down into the skills required and supplemental practice resources were created to support students with the remedial or basic skills.
Final Notes
Students will learn about citing textual evidence as they prepare to use the entire RACE strategy and then go on to writing various types of essays. By practicing how to cite text evidence, students will improve their ability to reference a text, use quotation marks, and work with tags.
