Collaboration

Our problem of practice :  How can we teach grade 3 students to write effective persuasive paragraphs? What did the data reveal? The students needed more practice forming clear reasons in their persuasive writing paragraphs.  Our Professional Learning Community :  The grade 3 teachers of St. Teresa of Avila School c0-planned and implemented a persuasive writing learning cycle, structured around the gradual release of responsibility model. We hoped to increase the consistency of instructional practice around writing persuasively through shared anchor charts, models, organizers and rubrics. Together we developed a diagnostic task, formative tasks, and a culminating task aimed at addressing these Ontario Curriculum Expectations for Writing :  1.2 generate ideas about a potential topic, using a variety of strategies and resources 1.3 gather information to support ideas for writing in a variety of ways and/or from a variety of sources 1.4 sort ideas and in...