How is Write One organized?
The Write One Handbook takes first graders on a writing adventure. Beautiful illustrations and friendly language help young writers create many different forms of writing.
The handbook features five main sections:
- The Process of Writing section helps first graders think of themselves as writers. They discover the qualities of writing and learn strategies for prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
- The Forms of Writing section teaches how to write the many forms: personal, subject, research, story, and poetry. Chapters provide guidelines, models, and checklists.
- The Tools of Learning section teaches skills for listening and speaking as well as reading and word study.
- The Proofreader's Guide provides rules and examples for sentences, capitals, punctuation, grammar, and usage.
- The Student Almanac includes exciting pages on handwriting, computers, maps, math, and theme words.
Take a Tour!
Page through the handbook in one of these ways:
What's in the grammar SkillsBook?
Write One includes a SkillsBook that provides activities for the rules in the Proofreader's Guide as well as pages for writing the major forms. It also features a personal word dictionary for students to gather new words they want to remember.
Take a Tour!
Page through the SkillsBook in one of these ways:
What's in the free online Teacher's Guide?
The Write One Teacher's Guide includes sequencing assignments, yearlong timetable, getting-started activities, chapter-by-chapter guide to the handbook, help for writing assessment, research basis, and activities and handouts.
You can get to the Teacher's Guide by going to k12.thoughtfullearning.com and clicking on "Teacher's Guides" in the top banner.
Take a Tour!
Page through the free online Teacher's Guide on any device with Internet access—no sign-in needed.
How do these components work together?
The Write One Handbook is designed to let you choose what you want to teach and when. Instead of marching page by page through a basal, you select the chapters you teach throughout the school year.
Here's one sample way that you might organize the first four weeks of instruction in your classroom, drawn from the "Yearlong Timetable" in the Teacher's Guide:
Most numbers represent pages in the Write One Handbook, but those marked SB represent pages in the SkillsBook. Here's one suggested teaching plan:
- Week 1: Download activities from "Getting Started with Write One" and distribute them to your students. These fun scavenger hunts and other activities help them become familiar with their handbooks. Then get students started with "Jenny Writes," which shows four students writing and helps your students see themselves as writers. You also can teach "Writing Sentences" from the Proofreader's Guide and the corresponding SkillsBook activities on pages 4–5.
- Week 2: Then present "Qualities of Writing" to help students focus on the important traits of structure, ideas, and conventions. You can also continue your work with sentences in "Kinds of Sentences" in the handbook and the SkillsBook.
- Week 3: Next, teach your students the "Steps in the Writing Process," which include prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing. Continue your conventions instruction with "Using Capital Letters" in the handbook and SkillsBook.
- Week 4: Get students writing routinely with "Writing in Journals" in the handbook, and follow up with the SkillsBook activity. Continue your conventions work with "Making Plurals" from both resources.
How can I get started with these materials?
Download the Write One Program Sheet. The first page provides an overview of what you have just learned about the three components. The second page gives you a simple four-step process for launching the program in your classroom—getting you and your students comfortable with Write One.
