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Color code: Fir Grove Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Sherryl Bailey reviews sentences that her students put together using Step up to Writing during class last week. Step up to Writing is a tool the Roseburg School District has introduced in its elementary and middle schools which uses colors to organize thoughts and ideas. Green identifies topics and conclusions, yellow is used for reasons, details and facts, and red shows elaboration, explanation and examples.
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ENLARGE
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Highlights: Using the Step up to Writing tool, Fir Grove Elementary School fifth-grader Matt Bogart highlights a sentence indicating what its purpose is in the story he wrote during class last week.
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Sherryl Bailey took a green highlighter from Matt Bogart's desk and handed it to him.
"Everyone else get out a yellow or a red," she told her class of fifth-graders at Fir Grove Elementary School.
"I need a human paragraph," she said.
The two students with green highlighters got up first.
"Yellows and reds, put yourselves in order. Go," Bailey said.
Bailey observed the long line curving from the whiteboard around the side of the room, a student with a green highlighter at each end. Too many yellows together, she said. Farther down the line there were too many reds, so some students moved.
"That works," Bailey said. Then she asked what was wrong with the original configuration.
"There'd be too many details and facts," Dyllon Gates said.
"Yeah, remember the reds are what gives us the meat in our story," she said.
The students were using Step up to Writing, a tool the Roseburg School District has introduced in its elementary and middle schools.
The students use colors to organize thoughts and ideas. Green identifies topics and conclusions; yellow is used for reasons, details and facts; and red shows elaboration, explanation and examples.
"Our initial introduction to it was with students ... that were struggling with writing," said Gwen Soderberg-Chase, the district's director of educational services. "It didn't take us long to recognize that it was a good resource to be used in all of our classrooms."
The program was developed by Sopris West Educational Services, an educational publishing company that focuses on students who are at risk for school failure, according to the company's Web site. The company cites more than 20 studies on how children learn to write as a basis for the program, and a case study of a Los Angeles middle school showed that students gained an average of 14 points on standardized writing tests after using the materials for a year.
Roseburg has not used the program long enough to measure results, but teachers tell her that students are producing writing samples they weren't able to in the past, and some of the best stories are coming from special education students, Soderberg-Chase said.
"Everyone else get out a yellow or a red," she told her class of fifth-graders at Fir Grove Elementary School.
"I need a human paragraph," she said.
The two students with green highlighters got up first.
"Yellows and reds, put yourselves in order. Go," Bailey said.
Bailey observed the long line curving from the whiteboard around the side of the room, a student with a green highlighter at each end. Too many yellows together, she said. Farther down the line there were too many reds, so some students moved.
"That works," Bailey said. Then she asked what was wrong with the original configuration.
"There'd be too many details and facts," Dyllon Gates said.
"Yeah, remember the reds are what gives us the meat in our story," she said.
The students were using Step up to Writing, a tool the Roseburg School District has introduced in its elementary and middle schools.
The students use colors to organize thoughts and ideas. Green identifies topics and conclusions; yellow is used for reasons, details and facts; and red shows elaboration, explanation and examples.
"Our initial introduction to it was with students ... that were struggling with writing," said Gwen Soderberg-Chase, the district's director of educational services. "It didn't take us long to recognize that it was a good resource to be used in all of our classrooms."
The program was developed by Sopris West Educational Services, an educational publishing company that focuses on students who are at risk for school failure, according to the company's Web site. The company cites more than 20 studies on how children learn to write as a basis for the program, and a case study of a Los Angeles middle school showed that students gained an average of 14 points on standardized writing tests after using the materials for a year.
Roseburg has not used the program long enough to measure results, but teachers tell her that students are producing writing samples they weren't able to in the past, and some of the best stories are coming from special education students, Soderberg-Chase said.
Middle and high school teachers are starting to use the program, too, Soderberg-Chase said.
"Step up to Writing is a collection of good instructional strategies to help students produce quality writing," she said.
The secondary language arts teachers are already using the program, and are training other teachers.
All teachers who use the program have had at least a half-day of training, and most have had more that is specific to the grade level they teach. Each school has leaders with even more knowledge about the program.
The district has also brought in a professional development consultant to give model lessons.
"We will constantly have training to give us insights into how to use the materials," Soderberg-Chase said.
Bailey's students use their highlighters for taking notes as well as writing, and using the colors makes more sense than the traditional outline with Roman numerals. She is integrating the program across the curriculum, but she emphasized that she doesn't teach the program; she uses it to teach students.
"One of the things that's really powerful about it is it's a tool for organizing ideas," she said.
After her students had made their human paragraph, they made a real paragraph about math.
"Step up to Writing is a collection of good instructional strategies to help students produce quality writing," she said.
The secondary language arts teachers are already using the program, and are training other teachers.
All teachers who use the program have had at least a half-day of training, and most have had more that is specific to the grade level they teach. Each school has leaders with even more knowledge about the program.
The district has also brought in a professional development consultant to give model lessons.
"We will constantly have training to give us insights into how to use the materials," Soderberg-Chase said.
Bailey's students use their highlighters for taking notes as well as writing, and using the colors makes more sense than the traditional outline with Roman numerals. She is integrating the program across the curriculum, but she emphasized that she doesn't teach the program; she uses it to teach students.
"One of the things that's really powerful about it is it's a tool for organizing ideas," she said.
After her students had made their human paragraph, they made a real paragraph about math.
STEP Up To WRITING lessons
The Roseburg School District started implementing Step up to Writing 2 1/2 years ago, and all the district’s elementary schools use the program. Secondary teachers are beginning to implement the techniques in their classrooms, too.
<b>How Step up to Writing Works</b> Students identify ideas using the colors of a traffic signal. They use highlighters to organize their own writing and notes. <b>• Green</b> — major ideas in topic sentences and conclusions <b>• Yellow</b> — reasons, details and facts <b>• Red</b> — elaboration, explanation, examples and more Every paragraph needs a topic sentence, in green and several supporting sentences in yellow. Each yellow sentence needs several sentences that elaborate, in red. And the paragraph ends with the main idea in green. |
Bailey gave each student a sentence about fractions, decimals and percentages.
"Raise your hand if you think you have a topic sentence," Bailey said.
Dyllon was pretty sure his was the topic of the paragraph, so Bailey had him tape it to a green bar on the whiteboard.
"Who thinks they have an idea about that?" Bailey asked.
One girl read her sentence about dividing up a cake.
"That might be a red," Bailey said.
The students put their sentences up on the whiteboard according to color. Once the paragraph had taken shape, the students swarmed the whiteboard to read it together.
The group began reading in unison: "Fractions, decimals and percents are all different ways of naming parts of a whole."
Then they moved to paragraphs they were writing about their three Christmas wishes for the world.
Each student had an outline marked with colors, and they were working on turning the outline into a paragraph. All started with a green topic sentence and then moved to a main point in yellow. Some had more details highlighted in red than others, depending on how ambitious the students were. But they all ended with a green conclusion.
* You can reach reporter Teresa Williams at 957-4230 or via e-mail at twilliams@newsreview.info.
"Raise your hand if you think you have a topic sentence," Bailey said.
Dyllon was pretty sure his was the topic of the paragraph, so Bailey had him tape it to a green bar on the whiteboard.
"Who thinks they have an idea about that?" Bailey asked.
One girl read her sentence about dividing up a cake.
"That might be a red," Bailey said.
The students put their sentences up on the whiteboard according to color. Once the paragraph had taken shape, the students swarmed the whiteboard to read it together.
The group began reading in unison: "Fractions, decimals and percents are all different ways of naming parts of a whole."
Then they moved to paragraphs they were writing about their three Christmas wishes for the world.
Each student had an outline marked with colors, and they were working on turning the outline into a paragraph. All started with a green topic sentence and then moved to a main point in yellow. Some had more details highlighted in red than others, depending on how ambitious the students were. But they all ended with a green conclusion.
* You can reach reporter Teresa Williams at 957-4230 or via e-mail at twilliams@newsreview.info.
