• Has this curriculum been piloted?
• Is there scientifically-based data vouching for the effectiveness of these curricular materials?
• If a school or district adopts the two series—Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5—will the books within these series be enough to sustain children's growth and teachers' instruction across all the grades?
• If I teach children who have not grown up within a writing workshop, can I follow these units of study? Or do they require a foundation that I will need to provide children?
• How much time should I devote to a single unit of study? If my children do not write particularly well, or if I am new to the teaching of writing, should I extend the time frame?
• Which books and other materials do I need to purchase to support these units of study?

The units of study described in the two series of books—Units of Study for Primary Writing, and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5—grew from the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project's deep, intensive and long-lasting affiliation with thousands of schools across the nation and the world. For almost three decades, my colleagues and I have collaboratively developed ideas on the teaching of writing, and then helped teachers and school leaders bring those ideas to classrooms and schools where, in turn, we learn from the young writers who help us outgrow our best-draft ideas about the teaching of writing. This cycle of curriculum development, teaching, action-research, assessment, and curricular revision has meant that for almost thirty years, those of us who are affiliated with the remarkable community have been able to stand on the shoulders of work that has gone before us.

When the leadership of New York City decided several years ago to bring the writing workshop to every classroom throughout the city, I knew that teachers would need extra curricular support. We wrote incomplete, fast-draft versions of these units of study and distributed them in loose-leaf binders. I gave schools throughout New York City approximately 30,000 binders, each containing several hundred pages. These were trucked to the elementary and middle schools which ascribe to our Project's work. For three years now, we have watched those materials be translated into teaching and learning, and have continuously revised our thinking based on what we have learned. So yes, the series has been piloted.

Is there scientifically-based data vouching for the effectiveness of these curricular materials?

The only assessment measure that has been used for many years (thirty) and has been used across every state is the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). The NAEP has often been referred to as "the nation's report card," and it has been used to compare and contrast different state exams. Several years ago the NAEP assessment found that New York City's children write as well or better than children in every other major city except Charlotte (New Yorkers jokingly question whether Charlotte qualifies as a major city!).

Across the nation, NAEP scores have been basically unchanging for thirty years. The current administration declared a triumph when this year's national average rose 1%. Meanwhile, scores in New York City rose a dramatic 7%, since the city's leadership brought balanced literacy and assessment-based reading interventions to scale. New York City's African-American students and English Language Learners improved in even more dramatic ways. According to the NAEP, New York City's lower income African-American and Latino children far outperformed similar studies in large cities in the nation as a whole.

From 2005 until now, NAEP has disaggregated data to show progress in ten large urban cities. From the first data point in 2002 until the most recent data in 2005, New York City has made a 10% gain. Sheila Ford, who announced the NAEP scores in a press conference in Boston, said, "This is a very significant gain." It is particularly important to bear in mind that meanwhile, New York City has 1.1 million children with 85% of them eligible for free and reduced lunch.

There is a great deal of data suggesting that improvements in writing will have a payoff across the curriculum.

If a school or district adopts the two series—Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5—will the books within these series be enough to sustain children's growth and teachers' instruction across all the grades?

The answer to this is no. These series of books were never intended to replace all the professional reading and study that teachers have been doing for all these years! You and your colleagues will absolutely need to continue to read other professional books, and you will need to continue to author your own ideas as well.

But yes, the two series of books can provide the backbone to a K-5 approach to the teaching of writing, bringing coherence to your schoolwide or district-wide writing curriculum.

These books absolutely support a spiral curriculum. For example, the books can help teachers of kindergartners to support children as they begin drawing, labeling, telling and writing simple Small Moment stories—and then over the years, the books will help teachers equip children to use more and more complex concepts, tools and strategies so that by fifth grade, children are not only writing sophisticated stories, they are also embedding those stories in memoir and personal essays, and using techniques developed in personal narrative to write short fiction. In a similar fashion, this spiraling curriculum supports teachers in scaffolding children's writing of expository and informational texts. The truth is that at no point will the books suffice as a script for your teaching. They are a very detailed model. They convey the story of what I (and in some instances, what colleagues of mine) did in order to teach a unit of study to a particular group of children. The books are filled with examples of my writing, with anecdotes about my dog and my family, and they are filled also with examples that come from particular children. Teachers at every grade level in a school will need to revise these lessons so they reflect you and your particular children, and so they are tailored to what your children can almost do. This means that when third-grade teachers, fourth-grade teachers, then fifth-grade teachers all rely on the books, you will at every point need to bring yourself and your kids to this model.

But if you ask whether, in general, it is appropriate for third graders to proceed through these units and then for fourth graders to revisit these units, and for fifth graders to have yet another go at them, the answer is usually yes. It is like learning to play tennis. You work on serving the ball when you are starting to learn, and again when you have been playing tennis for a year, and you still continue to work on serving the ball when you are a member of a varsity tennis team. In a similar manner, those of us who write continue to work at the same challenges, year after year. I find that the lessons I teach to third graders are very much the same lessons, tweaked a bit, that I teach to graduate students, and then when I get a bit of time, alone at my desk, these are the lessons I teach myself.

If I teach children who have not grown up within a writing workshop, can I follow these units of study? Or do they require a foundation that I will need to provide children?

If your children did not participate in a writing workshop before this year, you will certainly want to start with Launching the Writing Workshop and proceed (for the most part) in sequence. The truth is that you will want to do this even if your children did have the benefits of a writing workshop throughout their primary grades! So the answer to your concerns is this: Don't worry. Carry on! These units were designed, knowing that this would be the case for many teachers and children.

How much time should I devote to a single unit of study? If my children do not write particularly well, or if I am new to the teaching of writing, should I extend the time frame?

These units are designed to support a month-long unit of study. If you or your children are new to writing workshop, then you should expect to progress more quickly, not more slowly, through a unit of study. That is, when your children are skilled and experienced writers, they'll be able to spend more time revising and improving their draft, but if they are less experienced (or if you are), they'll probably stay closer to the pathway I've laid out.

Which books and other materials do I need to purchase to support these units of study?

There is a chapter in this book which describes the pens, folders, paper and notebooks that your children will need. On the CD-ROM included with the series, you will find resources you'll use and suggestions for texts or additional materials organized on a session-by-session (day-by-day) basis. Of course, you'll want to be sure to have some children's literature. The texts that are referred to the most in this series include Sandra Cisneros' and House on Mango Street, Cynthia Rylant's Every Living Thing, an anthology of short stories, the picture books Fireflies! by Julie Brinkloe and Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats.