I'm probably biased, I'm sure; I really love my Seven Elements of a Differentiated Writing Lesson. It's a framework I use in all my trainings now. It's designed to inspire writing teachers to think about what they're already doing well to help all learners become better writers, as well think about what they could be doing better. We could all be doing things better. Great writing instruction is a life-long learning topic for teachers, if ever there was one.
I've been working as one of the coordinators of the Northern Nevada Writing Project's next great print resource: Teaching Narrative Writing. The guide will contain a great variety of mini-lesson-inspired resources as well as ten complete lessons on teaching narrative/descriptive writing in elementary school.
The guide, which comes out this March, is being marketed as a tool for collaborative teaching teams, and the ten lessons are included to inspire great conversation among like-minded teachers. To help guide the conversation, we've decided my Seven Elements framework will be the basis of the discussion the guide is trying to promote. Each of the ten lessons in the guide (like the one pictured above) will feature a discussion prompt (see the gray box) that asks teachers to think specifically about the seven elements.
Here is a draft just one of the ten lessons being featured in the guide. Feel free to print it and apply the Seven Elements discussion prompt to the entire lesson. I think you'll see the power of the Seven Elements as a discussion tool.
In particular, with this lesson, notice that its strength really lies with its three grahic organizers and the way we designed the student samples to serve as discussion tools!
--Corbett
