Our Philosophy

• All students can think, and all students can write.

• Formula/structure is a place to start for students who need it; some don’t need it at all. We want students to leave the formula behind when they are ready to do so. Breaking the formula is called weaving – mixing evidence and analysis / concrete detail and commentary.

• Consistency of the program outweighs individual teacher preference. Everyone abides by majority vote.

• Common terminology for the paragraph and essay helps students learn.

• Writing is a process that includes decoding the prompt, reading and annotating one or more texts, completing the JSWP™ graphic organizers, drafting, editing, revising, and following the guidelines of the rubric. All of these steps are required.

• Meeting regularly to talk about student work is critical.

What We Do In Class

• We color-code the paragraph and the essay in our presentations (black, blue, red, and green pens).

• We use rubrics for each step in the process and the final product.

• We see students in one-to-one conferencing as often as possible.

• For each student, we have multiyear, cumulative writing portfolios through jswponline.com.

• We write with each other and with our students (Shared Writing); “We can’t teach what we don’t do” (Carol Jago).

• We follow the Gradual Release of Responsibility Methodology.