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The Writing Revolution hosted its 10th Anniversary Lighthouse Gala in New York City. Nearly 200 attendees came together to celebrate a decade of delivering explicit writing instruction to educators across the U.S. and around the world.
The evening included hours of conversation and celebration, as well as several memorable highlights:
The gala marked a significant milestone in TWR’s history and proved to be an unforgettable evening for everyone who attended.
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The Writing Revolution 2.0 will be available in Summer 2024.
This new edition builds on the success of the first and adds valuable new guidance for all educators. The addition of even more student-facing examples makes it easier to incorporate the Hochman Method into classroom learning.
The changes in the second edition include:
The addition of the Pre-Transition Outline (PTO) and the Transition Outline (TO): Many students who have learned to write paragraphs are ready to embark on lengthier writing but not yet equipped for the demands of the Multi-Paragraph Outline (MPO). The TO requires only a thesis statement at the beginning and a concluding statement at the end. Students who are not ready for the TO can use the PTO to help them begin thinking about the requirements of MPOs and essays.
Changes in the sequence of sentence activities. Sentence expansion is introduced earlier than in the previous edition. When young students learn to expand a simple sentence into one that is more complex, they learn to provide the kind of information readers need for comprehension.
The introduction of transitions as sentence activities. Previously, transition words weren’t introduced until the chapter on revision. Using transition words is an important element of revision, but students benefit from using sentence activities to learn and practice the strategy.
More illustrations of all strategies. These examples help readers adapt the strategies to whatever content they’re teaching.
Questions for book discussion groups. Many educators are reading and discussing the book collaboratively. The questions will serve as a guide for these discussions.
More online resources. Readers will be able to access updated customizable templates as well as examples of activities embedded in frequently used content.
An expanded discussion of assessment. The new edition contains material on formative and summative assessments, and on how to administer writing prompts at the beginning, middle, and end of the year and evaluate students’ responses.
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TWR faculty traveled to Teacher Leader Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana to present a series of sessions on the Hochman Method embedded in the ELA Guidebooks 3-5 (2022), which were created in partnership with TWR, Monroe City School “revolutionary” teachers, and the Louisiana Department of Education.
Kiersten Peltier and Ailish McDermott presented an overview of TWR’s ELA Guidebooks 3-5 (2022) asynchronous workshop and shared examples of how the writing strategies are embedded in the units for grades 3-5.
For educators who were already teaching the revised ELA Guidebooks, Christine Teahan provided guidance on how to utilize the embedded TWR activities to continually assess students’ writing skills and content knowledge. Alexandria Chalonec shared best practices for annotating teaching notes for TWR activities to meet the needs of all learners in the classroom.
During a separate session, “revolutionary” educators from Monroe City Schools (MCS) shared their district’s story of successfully implementing TWR and its positive impact on student achievement.
The sessions drew large audiences and provided educators throughout Louisiana with access to resources and instructional best practices needed to effectively teach the revised ELA Guidebooks 3-5 (2022) with TWR writing strategies embedded.
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TWR’s faculty regularly visit partner schools to support educators implementing TWR into classroom instruction.
During a visit to Roosevelt Elementary School in Manville, NJ, 4th-graders were learning sentence expansion strategies while studying topics such as the the Lenape and animal traits.
While visiting Lee F. Jackson Elementary School in the Greenburgh Central School District, NY, TWR saw students learning Single-Paragraph Outline strategies while studying the seasons and growing plants.
In each class, students were excited to participate in classroom activities using the writing strategies they learned.
The TWR team continues to spread the revolution. Public courses beginning in May were attended by educators from:
