CREATIVE WRITING

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Creative Writing course is designed for students entering grades 6 in the Fall. Students will apply concepts of writing to craft creative writing pieces. Writer’s Workshop students review grammar, sentence formation, paragraph construction, and editing strategies to increase their writing fluency and written communication skills with a strong focus on furthering developing their writing voice.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

• Write sentences with compound subjects and predicates.
• Identify prepositions and prepositional phrases.
• Use adverbs, pronouns, possessive nouns, and adjectives.
• Write with dialogue, introductory phrases, and interjections.

WHAT HAPPENS IN CLASS

Every class lesson will differ, but during each class period students will engage in the following activities:

• Complete a warm-up writing prompt in order to develop writing stamina and prepare students for the work ahead
• Learn new skills through a whole-class writing or grammar mini-lesson relevant to their ongoing writing project.
• Independently practice skills related to the mini-lesson from class
• Review and practice grammar concepts using their writing piece as a guide.

During many class periods, students will:

• Engage in regular 1:1 writing conferences with the instructor in order to set and develop strategies to achieve individualized writing goals and to reflect upon writing achievements
• Participate in regular small group writing/grammar strategy sessions

Throughout the 2 weeks, students work on one large-scale writing project, doing most of the revising in class. It is crucial that students keep up with this work and come prepared for class each day.

INDEPENDENT WORK

Students should expect to spend 60 minutes outside of class sessions on independent work each week. Students will also have a weekly grammar quiz: doing this reading independently frees up class time for practicing and conferencing Students will also be assigned several vocabulary exercises each week, which they will complete.

TEACHER FEEDBACK

Since students will complete most of their writing in class using a digital writing journal accessed through Google Drive, there will be many opportunities for the teacher to provide informal feedback. The teacher will conference individually and in small groups with students regularly; providing oral feedback and some informal written notes on their work. Students will submit their final draft and receive detailed, formal written feedback from their teacher. By the end of the course, students will revise their work and engage in self-reflection regarding their writing pieces.

ASSESSMENTS

Students will take a writing assessment at the beginning and at the end of the course to assess their growth in writing ability, structure, and stamina. The teacher will holistically assess each piece of writing alongside a writing rubric to determine each child’s strengths and areas for growth in writing. The students will also take grammar quizzes throughout the course to assess their growth in understanding of grammatical rules.