contact us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.

177 Huntington Ave Ste 1703 PMB 74520
Boston, MA, 02115
United States

617-725-0000

ANet is a nonprofit dedicated to the premise that every child in America deserves an excellent education and the opportunities it provides. We pursue our vision of educational equality in America by helping schools boost student learning with great teaching that is grounded in standards, informed by data, and built on the successful practices of educators around the country.

Zooming in on the vertical progression in writing

You’d be hard-pressed to find a school that isn’t focused on improving student writing. And that’s not surprising—it takes a lot of practice to transfer thoughts into writing, and to do so in a clear, compelling way.

Zooming in on the vertical progression in writing

You'd be hard-pressed to find a school that isn't focused on improving student writing. And that's not surprising—it takes a lot of practice to transfer thoughts into writing, and to do so in a clear, compelling way.

Studying the vertical progression allows us to see where students need to make cognitive leaps, such as moving from writing about their opinions to crafting arguments.

One of the ways we can help students become better writers is by deepening our understanding of the way standards connect and build on one another as students move from from one grade to the next. When we only look at the standards for our grade, it can be challenging to understand how this learning fits within the scope of a year or across the multiple years students will spend learning to hone their writing skills; in a way, we're looking at the standards in a vacuum. But when we look at the progression of standards across grades we’re able to contextualize our grade level learning goals and ensure the tasks we're putting in front of students are rigorous. Improving writing in our classrooms is no small task; it requires that we strategically support that builds on previous learning, such as using dialogue and descriptions, or using transition words to connect ideas.

Remember to craft writing prompts around appropriately complex texts—otherwise, students are not actually meeting the expectations of grade-level standards.

Here's an activity you can use as part of a professional learning session for cross-grade teacher teams. In this activity, teachers create writing tasks based on grade-level learning goals, as defined by the Common Core Standards for their particular grade.