2nd–5th grade content is built from a mix of lesson types—each designed to introduce, practice, or reinforce a specific writing skill. Here's a quick overview of what's available and where to find more detail.
Genre Units
Genre Units guide students through the full writing process to complete a genre-specific piece of writing:
- Narrative
- Opinion (Persuasive)
- Informative
Each lesson in the unit builds on each other, so students complete them in order, start to finish. Students learn techniques and styles they can carry into their everyday writing.
Essential Skills Lessons
Essential Skills zoom in on one writing concept, skill or practice, moving students from guided to independent practice. They work well as pre-writing or reinforcement activities, and include a few different formats:
- Skill-building lessons are grouped around one foundational mechanic like sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Each lesson group includes a lesson that introduces the main concept and multiple practice lessons.
- Writing Prompt lessons are short (~15 minutes), low-prep opportunities for students to independently practice a skill they've already learned.
- Writing Community lessons (~30 minutes) help students build collaborative writing skills, like peer feedback and goal-setting.
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This variety is exactly why we don't offer a set pacing or planning guide. You know your students best, so you're free to introduce a genre unit at the right time for your students or select the “just right” Essential Skills lesson, rather than following a fixed script.