Dear Parents, Sent home: January
5, 2016
The
week of May 16th, Lower School Graland students will be taking a final writing
assessment: The Unit 5 Journeys Benchmark. This is part of our Journeys
comprehensive literacy curriculum. Starting
next week, third grade students will be practicing the required skills to
complete the full writing process. We will practice a lot in class, as well as
at home for homework. We are calling the homework writing assignments “GO Write!”
and they are scheduled for next week, and the weeks of Feb. 22, Mar. 14, and
Apr. 25. Other homework expectations (spelling, cursive, math, literacy) will
be adjusted during these homework weeks.
You
will notice that the writing homework involves five steps. To help your child
with pacing, a recommended timing schedule is noted.
· Prompt
· Brainstorming (15 minutes)
· Rough draft (45 minutes)
· Editing (15 minutes - Please let
your child edit on his/her own and providing your child with a child dictionary
will be helpful.)
· Final draft (45 minutes - This
skill will be included in the final two “Go Write!” homework assignments).
The
Journeys program provides a prompt that the students must write about. This process happens at the end of each unit.
The students will take the Unit 5 Benchmark writing test in two sessions, over
two consecutive days, each sessions taking approximately 60 minutes (Day 1:
brainstorm and rough draft, Day 2: editing and final draft). In the first session, the children write a
rough draft, and in the second session they revise that draft and produce their
final essay. All writing assessments are scored using our four-point writing
rubric, which will also be attached to each “Go Write! homework assignment.
We are
pretending this is a contract J, so please sign and initial this letter with
your child. If you have any questions,
please feel free to ask your child's teacher.
Thank you for all of your support at home!
The Third Grade Team
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