In the Four-Blocks Literacy Model, teachers devote 30-40 minutes each day to each of the major approaches to learning to read, including writing. During the Writing Block, children write and share each day, and they observe the teacher writing and thinking about writing during the daily writing mini-lesson.
The mini-lesson is critical to the success of the Writing Block, and the focus of the mini-lessons changes as the teachers proceed through the third-grade year. The mini-lessons in this book are divided into three sections:
- Mini-Lessons for early in Third Grade
- Mini-Lessons for Most of Third Grade
- Mini-Lessons for Later in Third Grade
How many lessons you do and how many times you do a mini-lesson depends upon your students and their abilities. Included are writing mini-lessons for:
- Beginning to Write
- coming Up with Ideas
- Staying Focused
- Editing with an Editor's Checklist
- Painting a Picture with Descriptive Words
- Sequencing
- Developing a Plot
- and many more!