Grades 5 and 6 Writing Units of Study.pdf

December/January
Persuasive Essay/Letters & Compare and Contrast Essay
Though there are two months to teach both of these essays, the time flies, and planning
out a two month calendar (while allowing some catch-up days/or snow days planned into
the monthly calendar) may be most helpful in ensuring that both units are taught and
completed.
Overview of Writing a Persuasive Essay
In this unit you will teach students to write idea-based pieces in which they continue to
craft powerful subjects and control structure, now in non-narrative form. This unit of
study invites students into the difficult and exhilarating work of learning to write well
within an expository structure. Students need scaffolding and support in order to
experience the process of writing effective essays. In this unit, you will reduce some of
the complexity of finished essays, highlight the most essential moves an essayist must
make, and show students that these moves are within their reach. You‘ll elongate the
process of writing an essay in order to show students how to do each aspect of this
work, and to give them practice at each one.
At the start of this unit, you will point out to writers that they could conceivably write
about a topic—say a visit to the Dominican Republic—as a narrative, retelling it
chronologically, or as a non-narrative piece, also referred to as an essay, in which case
they‘ll advance a certain idea (―Visits to the Dominican Republic feel like going home,‖
for example). You will teach students that the terms narrative and non-narrative (or
essay) refer to structure and genre, not to content. For some students, the fact that
they can write about personal topics in a genre other than personal narrative will be a
new realization. In this unit, each student will write a personal essay in which he or she
advances a theme of personal significance, arguing, for example, ―It‘s hard being an
older sister,‖ or claiming, ―My father is my best teacher.‖
This unit merits some time. It‘s no small task to teach children how to write modest yet
well-structured and competent essays. The first step is to help students write rough
drafts. Once they understand the basic structure of an essay, they‘ll move on to doing
lots of revision with the goal of learning as much as possible about logical thought. Then,
after helping kids spend two to three weeks writing one essay, you can give them the
option of churning out a quick essay in a day, and revising it on the next, and then show
them how to write an essay using the revision strategies they know in one period. Take
your time investing in this work – your effort will have enormous payoffs.
Strategies for Generating and Elaborating Upon Essay Writing