Unit 1: Pilot Lessons from AWP

Instructions for teachers:  This curriculum is intended to guide you through a progression towards students improving their argumentative writing and power.  Lessons are built on a 50 minute lesson plan template, with the understanding that pacing will vary for different classes.  We offer additional resources and activities to provide opportunities for you to expand and/or modify these lessons in a way that works for you and your students.  The lessons are intended for in-person learning but are accompanied by digital components and can be adapted for virtual learning.

Part of a Whole: You will be piloting a part of our new argumentative writing curriculum.  These nine lessons are just part of the whole curriculum, a few lessons taken from each section.  We have tried to present it here as cohesively as possible, but have removed the major unit end projects since students will not have enough time to complete that work during this pilot.  You will still have plenty of checkpoint assessments to monitor student progress throughout, but please keep in mind that many of these activities are geared towards students developing a persuasive speech and a final persuasive op-ed, testimony or PSA which are not contained in this pilot curriculum.

Writers’ Notebook: Throughout this curriculum, each student will maintain a writer’s notebook.  You can choose whether to make this a physical notebook or a virtual one.  You will see instructions throughout to have students write in this writers’ notebook so it should be readily accessible each class period.  We want to encourage students to do as much writing and reflecting as possible during this unit to build their comfort level with writing.  Feel free to adapt “bell-ringers” or closings of each class to give students more free writing time.  To assist you in that, we have developed an inspiration document with prompts, questions and images that can help students get started if they need some guidance to help them start writing.