The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects

Writing is a task as complex and multifaceted as reading—but it’s often taught as a single skill. Discover how to plan and deliver comprehensive, explicit, and evidence-based writing instruction with this groundbreaking book, aligned with IDA’s Structured Literacy approach and based on the latest research.

Joan Sedita's innovative Writing Rope weaves multiple skills and strategies into five fundamentals of a comprehensive writing curriculum: critical thinking, syntax (sentences), text structure, writing craft, and transcription (spelling and handwriting). Teachers of Grades 4-8 will get crystal-clear guidelines that demystify the process of helping students learn to write and write to learn across academic content areas. And with dozens of included templates, handouts, and other resources—available for download online—teachers will have all the tools they need to design and deliver explicit, high-quality writing instruction.

Perfect for professional development, this invaluable planning guide will help teachers apply the science of reading to the skill of writing—and help students master a critically important aspect of literacy.

• Learn the fundamentals of effective writing instruction. Get research-based background knowledge about writing development, the five components of the Writing Rope framework, the role of fluent transcription skills in proficient writing, and the intentional choices proficient writers make about writing craft.
• Apply evidence-based practices in the classroom. Teach essential skills all students must learn to become proficient writers, focusing on critical thinking strategies for generating ideas and gathering information before writing, strategies for each stage of the writing process, syntactic awareness and sentence writing, paragraph writing, and skilful structuring of different types of text.
• Help students “write to learn.” Teach students how to use writing to enhance their learning across different content areas. Learn how to plan effective writing assignments in different content areas, and explicitly teach students skills for summarising texts and writing about narrative and expository text.

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: Apply the Writing Rope framework to support your students’ writing skills with classroom activities, Connect to Your Classroom questions, suggestions for scaffolding, a Writing Assignment Guide to use with any grade or content area, and 40+ reproducible instructional resources for students and teachers.

Table of Contents

About the Downloads

About the Author

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

• Section I: Laying the Foundation for Teachers and Students

1: Introduction to The Writing Rope

2: What Do We Know About Effective Writing Instruction?

3: Transcription Skills

4: Writing Craft

• Section II: Skills and Strategies: Learning to Write

5: Critical Thinking: Stages of the Writing Process

6: Syntax and Sentence Skills

7: Text Structure: Paragraph Skills

8: Text Structure: Three Types of Writing

• Section III: Applications: Writing to Learn

9: Critical Thinking: Summary Writing

10: Critical Thinking: Writing from Text Sources

11: Putting It All Together

References

Index