Second Grade Writers: Units of Study to Help Children Focus on Audience and Purpose

by Stephanie Parsons

Children enter second grade with strategies for turning their ideas into a plan for writing. Now its time to show them how to think more deeply about who will read their writing and what it will accomplish. Second Grade Writers gives you proven, effective ways to help young children take steps toward intermediate writing by teaching them about the important roles of audience and purpose. In Second Grade Writers Stephanie Parsons (author of First Grade Writers and a coauthor of Lucy Calkins Units of Study for Primary Writing ) offers five specific units of study that help children develop a keener sense of what they can and want to accomplish in their writing. Beginning with a September unit designed to build a classroom community that supports risk taking and encourages students to immerse themselves in writing, each successive unit engages children in a different genre and fosters increasing independence. Each type of writing has a very different purpose and audience and opens up new possibilities as students experiment Parsons units of study are laid out logically with a thorough description of the unit, teaching points for the minilessonsincluding examples of classroom languageassessment diagnostics, elaborations and variations, troubleshooting tips, and month-by-month planning ideas. Whether you areaugmenting your existing workshop or establishing a new one, help your students move toward independence by considering their audience and writing with clarity and purpose. Read Second Grade Writers , implement its units of study, and help children become more engaged, more independent writers today.

Genres: Education

184 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2007

Reviews

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must-read for any second grade teacher who uses a Writer's Workshop approach to teaching writing. This book confirmed some things that I am already doing well and gave me a lot of ideas on how to adapt or improve my Writer's Workshop program. I especially liked the chapter on teaching a Humor unit - using humor is always so important to my students, and I don't feel I've been able to legitimize that for children. After reading and taking notes on this book, I decided to start a wiki space for my colleagues and I to share elements of our writing programs (we have already started the collaboration process anyway). That site is:

http://kasdacademics.wikispaces.com

[Diana Pettis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Judy Remick-Ward for recommending this text to me. I really enjoyed reading it and look forward to using parts of it in relation to the Lucy Calkins writing workshop materials. If you are teaching second grade and haven't read this I would recommend it.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone teaching 2nd graders to write, will love this well designed, easy to read book. It lays out several units of study sure to be a hit with teachers and students alike.