Appendix on Implementing District Standards
W.2.3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.
While this unit is not focused on narratives and sequencing, this writing standard gets at the use of details to bring writing to life. Additionally, the fact that very few standards discuss creative writing exemplifies the need for a unit on creative writing, as its absence from the standards is an oversight.
W.2.5 With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.
Students notoriously dread revising, but it is a crucial part of effective writing. The support from both adults and peers is at the center of this unit, as students will become experts in their own writing and their own ideas about how to improve writing. Suggestions from peers often seem to go over better than a teacher telling a student what they need to change about their writing.
RL.2.4 Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
This reading standard is crucial to this unit, as students will be analyzing prose and poetry to identify the use of various literary devices. Attention to these devices also lends itself to discussing how these devices change or support the meaning of a piece of writing. Once students notice these things in other writing, they can try them in their own writing.
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