Fostering a Love of Literacy
through a workshop Model
READING WORKSHOP
UNIT 1: Second-Grade Reading Growth Spurt
Second grade is a year in which children grow by leaps and bounds, not just on the playground, but also in the classroom, as readers. To cement children’s expectations for a year in which they’ll grow and grow and grow as readers, we'll remind them of the beloved tale, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” explaining that researchers who study young kids as readers say that during second grade, readers grow just like that beanstalk.
UNIT 2: Becoming Experts: Reading Nonfiction
As this unit begins, we share with our students that for a time, they’ll shift from reading fiction to reading nonfiction. For now, they’ll say goodbye to Ivy and Bean, and to Captain Underpants—and hello to nonfiction. And that’s a big deal. Research suggests that first-graders read nonfiction for only 3.6 minutes a day. Chances are good that most second-graders don’t get much more access to nonfiction than that. So this unit will put us on the cutting edge of primary language arts instruction.
UNIT 3: Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power
At the start of this unit, we'll say, “Readers, you know how there are scientists who study bees, and there are scientists who study hurricanes? Well, there are also scientists who study reading. There are professors of reading; to study reading, they go into classrooms just like ours, with their clipboards and their pens behind their ears, and they watch and listen to kids reading.” These research scientists have found that second grade is a time for readers to experience an enormous growth spurt.
UNIT 4: Series Book Clubs
Our second graders have now blossomed into almost-third-graders, and will now be tackling chapter books in this last unit. Many young readers will be more able now to orchestrate all the sources of information and to get through tough words with increasing ease. However, this confidence can also cause children to fall into the habit of whizzing through their reading, not monitoring for sense. We may find that some readers need encouragement to slow down so as to read more closely. This unit provides many opportunities to engage children in looking at the text carefully, thinking about what the text is saying and about how the writer is saying it.
UNITS OF STUDY for Teaching Reading, GRADE 2
© 2015 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.
Second grade is a year in which children grow by leaps and bounds, not just on the playground, but also in the classroom, as readers. To cement children’s expectations for a year in which they’ll grow and grow and grow as readers, we'll remind them of the beloved tale, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” explaining that researchers who study young kids as readers say that during second grade, readers grow just like that beanstalk.
UNIT 2: Becoming Experts: Reading Nonfiction
As this unit begins, we share with our students that for a time, they’ll shift from reading fiction to reading nonfiction. For now, they’ll say goodbye to Ivy and Bean, and to Captain Underpants—and hello to nonfiction. And that’s a big deal. Research suggests that first-graders read nonfiction for only 3.6 minutes a day. Chances are good that most second-graders don’t get much more access to nonfiction than that. So this unit will put us on the cutting edge of primary language arts instruction.
UNIT 3: Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power
At the start of this unit, we'll say, “Readers, you know how there are scientists who study bees, and there are scientists who study hurricanes? Well, there are also scientists who study reading. There are professors of reading; to study reading, they go into classrooms just like ours, with their clipboards and their pens behind their ears, and they watch and listen to kids reading.” These research scientists have found that second grade is a time for readers to experience an enormous growth spurt.
UNIT 4: Series Book Clubs
Our second graders have now blossomed into almost-third-graders, and will now be tackling chapter books in this last unit. Many young readers will be more able now to orchestrate all the sources of information and to get through tough words with increasing ease. However, this confidence can also cause children to fall into the habit of whizzing through their reading, not monitoring for sense. We may find that some readers need encouragement to slow down so as to read more closely. This unit provides many opportunities to engage children in looking at the text carefully, thinking about what the text is saying and about how the writer is saying it.
UNITS OF STUDY for Teaching Reading, GRADE 2
© 2015 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.
WRITING WORKSHOP
Unit 1: Poetry - Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages
Children write collections of poems in this unit, learning to go beyond the rhyming ditties that come to mind first to find precise images that represent big ideas. They learn to use line breaks to express the meaning and rhythm they intend, and to use visualization and figures of speech to make their writing more clear and powerful.
poetry paper
Poetry Foundation website
Poetry Farm website
Unit 2: Lessons from Masters - Narrative Writing
Building on the skills and understanding from the previous years, our narrative writing units will engage students in writing about real and imagined experiences and events using effective techniques, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. The trajectory of these units will take students from small-moment events and fictional chapter books to contemporary fairy tales and personal memoirs.
Narrative paper choices: 1, 2, 3
Jane Yolen
Angela Johnson
The How-To Guide for Nonfiction Writing
This accessible unit welcomes second graders into the world of nonfiction writing by rallying them to write lots of little nonfiction books. Youngsters learn that they can take anything they know a lot about—soccer, an ice cream shop, ladybugs—and write in ways that teach their readers about the topic. The unit helps second graders feel that puffed-up pride of being an expert and taps into their eagerness to show and tell by channeling them to write with details and with writerly craft.
In this unit, students learn to:
Unit 3: Lab Reports and Science Books - Informational Writing
In this unit students write procedural texts, descriptions and analyses about experiments, then use that to write science-based information books. Building on increasingly complex nonfiction content and sources, the information writing units will help you teach students how to examine and convey domain-specific vocabulary and ideas clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of cross-curricular content. The trajectory of these units will take students from procedural how-to texts and nonfiction chapter books to lab reports and research-based essays.
Lab Report paper
BBC Science Clips website
Unit 4: Writing About Reading - Opinion/Argument Writing
In this unit, students write letters and essays about their opinions about characters, scenes, or whole books using examples from the texts. If you read the Common Core’s opinion/argument writing standards in a horizontal fashion, setting the descriptors for each skill from one grade alongside those for the next grade and noting the new work that is added at each subsequent grade, you'll come to understand the trajectory along which writers can travel.
UNITS OF STUDY in OPINION, INFORMATION, and NARRATIVE WRITING, GRADE 2
© 2013 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.
Children write collections of poems in this unit, learning to go beyond the rhyming ditties that come to mind first to find precise images that represent big ideas. They learn to use line breaks to express the meaning and rhythm they intend, and to use visualization and figures of speech to make their writing more clear and powerful.
poetry paper
Poetry Foundation website
Poetry Farm website
Unit 2: Lessons from Masters - Narrative Writing
Building on the skills and understanding from the previous years, our narrative writing units will engage students in writing about real and imagined experiences and events using effective techniques, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. The trajectory of these units will take students from small-moment events and fictional chapter books to contemporary fairy tales and personal memoirs.
Narrative paper choices: 1, 2, 3
Jane Yolen
Angela Johnson
The How-To Guide for Nonfiction Writing
This accessible unit welcomes second graders into the world of nonfiction writing by rallying them to write lots of little nonfiction books. Youngsters learn that they can take anything they know a lot about—soccer, an ice cream shop, ladybugs—and write in ways that teach their readers about the topic. The unit helps second graders feel that puffed-up pride of being an expert and taps into their eagerness to show and tell by channeling them to write with details and with writerly craft.
In this unit, students learn to:
- Write about areas of expertise
- Read mentor texts to study nonfiction writers craft
- Elaborate
- Write for readers, anticipating their questions and hooking their interest
- Experiment with different kinds of nonfiction writing
Unit 3: Lab Reports and Science Books - Informational Writing
In this unit students write procedural texts, descriptions and analyses about experiments, then use that to write science-based information books. Building on increasingly complex nonfiction content and sources, the information writing units will help you teach students how to examine and convey domain-specific vocabulary and ideas clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of cross-curricular content. The trajectory of these units will take students from procedural how-to texts and nonfiction chapter books to lab reports and research-based essays.
Lab Report paper
BBC Science Clips website
Unit 4: Writing About Reading - Opinion/Argument Writing
In this unit, students write letters and essays about their opinions about characters, scenes, or whole books using examples from the texts. If you read the Common Core’s opinion/argument writing standards in a horizontal fashion, setting the descriptors for each skill from one grade alongside those for the next grade and noting the new work that is added at each subsequent grade, you'll come to understand the trajectory along which writers can travel.
UNITS OF STUDY in OPINION, INFORMATION, and NARRATIVE WRITING, GRADE 2
© 2013 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.