Implementing a Writing Lesson with Engagement Strategies

Strong Instruction

The Writing Lesson is not a "plug and play" process; instead, your expertise is essential! Teachers needed to determine instructional strategies that will be used, set expectations for students, and frequently check-in and redirect students.

Engagement & Collaboration

The Writing Lesson is a rigorous process. A huge part of the Writing Lesson is the student collaboration that should be facilitated along the way. From quick turn-and-talks to full Socratic discussions, collaboration is key to developing students’ speaking and listening skills.

Teacher Feedback

We know students need teacher feedback in order to improve. In this Resource Guide, we will outline your options for providing feedback within the ThinkCERCA platform.

The purpose of this step is to activate background knowledge, and build student buy-in for the topic. We want to get students excited to learn more! Consider using the Class Discussion Question to begin to spark critical thinking.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• CERCA Icebreakers
• Vote with your Feet
• Take a Stand
• KWLQ Chart

Each Writing Lesson provides students with embedded vocabulary, and choosing a strategy to engage in the vocabulary will ensure greater understanding. 

Teaching strategies for this step:

• List, Group, Label
• Frayer Model
• Concept Map
• Act it Out
• Vocabulary Squares
• I Have, Who Has

In this step, students respond to a personal connection question in order to build relevance for the topic.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Think, Pair, Share

Set expectations for close reading practice, deciding when and how students should read aloud, silently, and/or at what pace. The audio of each text, read by a real human voice, is available at this step.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Silent Conversation
• Read, Reiterate, Collaborate
• Graphic Organizers 
• Annotation

Students are given a five-question multiple-choice comprehension check. It's important to model answering the questions so that students do not rush through it. This is automatically assessed for you, and students will see their score right away. 

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Corner Review
• CERCA Review
• Prediction 
• Error Analysis

This step guides students to highlight evidence from the text that responds to the prompt. This is a great opportunity to check for understanding of the text. Consider using this step as an opportunity for collaboration, splitting the class into small groups or teams to find and discuss either blue or pink highlights, then sharing out as a whole-group.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Collaborating to Find Evidence

Students write a summary of the text. Built-in sentence stems help students summarize what they’ve read using academic language

Teaching strategies for this step:

• 3-2-1 Strategy
• Think, Pair, Share

At this step, students begin to build their response to the prompt. Students must enter a claim before they can move on to the other parts of CERCA. Teachers should attend to small groups and individual students, support 1:1 where needed, as these items will roll into their final product.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Gallery Walk
• Debate Game
• Socratic Discussion
• CERCA Snowstorm

All work students have done saves to their "My Work" tab, and they can copy it over to the text box for Step 6. It's important to set clear expectations at this step (length of writing, what parts of CERCA to include, etc). Once they submit the assignment, they will be unable to edit until you have returned for revision.

Teaching strategies for this step:

• Writing Lesson Checklist
• Stations
• Socratic Discussion
• Peer Editing