A 4th grade Curriculum Guide for writing instruction that aligns with the New York State Common Core reading and writing standards.

Abstract

This curriculum project provides teachers with instructional resources and lesson plans that integrate writing into reading in a fourth grade classroom. It includes ways to structure writing within their classroom that create an engaging writing atmosphere where students are motivated and are willing to take risks as writers. Answering text based questions requires a particular process that includes understanding the prompt or question, organization or construction of ideas and explaining answers with text evidence. When writing, students are required to write under the three genres of narrative, informative and opinion. The research based strategies have been included as a guide for teachers, along with four modules that contain lesson plans with writing prompts that are part of the three genres. An appendix contains additional graphic organizers and assessment tools for teachers to use during writing instruction.