Urban Education Exchange

Urban Education Exchange
Web address: http://www.ueexchange.org


The mission fo the Urban Education Exchange is to eliminate the achievement gap in reading. The website has a multitude of different resources; however, I have found that I use their teacher created reading curriculum more than anything else. There are reading unit plans for grades K-6. The literature-based units are grouped by genre, including: realistic fiction, poetry, fantasy, historical fiction and biography.  Each genre includes a number of unit plans at various reading levels for each grade. The units include all of the resources that are needed to teach that unit. Every unit is designed to meet the needs of a high-performing urban school.

Writing Through the Tween Years

Writing Through the Tween Years 
Written by Bruce Morgan
With Deb Odom



Written by teachers in response to their frustration with over-emphasis on test prep in their school. They look at writing essentials for students in grades 3-6, best practices for mentoring tweens as writers, and the incorporation of spelling and grammar conventions into authentic writing.


Besides the discussion on who tweens are and where they are developmentally, section one includes a sample writing block schedule with writing warm up called Living Books, mini-lesson, independent work time, small group sessions, and group reflection (p. 20).  Along with scheduling suggestions, Morgan and Odom provides a breakdown of crafting categories (p. 23) and uses ideas from Mosaic of thought by Ellin Keene to align reading and writing skills/ strategies (p. 43).  


In section two, Morgan and Odom begin by providing insight into the use of Living Books to mentor tweens in the wrriting process. They continue by arguing the importance of teacher's using their own writing with which to model, despite our common fear that we aren't "good enough" as writers to write anything worthwhile. Next, they model how to use mentor texts and provide countless examples and lists of outstanding mentor texts for tweens. The authors have pointed out what stragegy they suggest teaching with each mentor text. 


Finally, in section three, the authors tackle the integration of authentic writing and test prep. This section covers conventions, grammar, and spelling. It also pushes on the need to create a safe environment to discuss growth and assessments.  


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Morgan, Bruce & Odom, Deb. (2004). Writing through the tween years. Portland: Stenhouse Pub.