AN INTEGRATED

LANGUAGE ARTS
CURRICULUM
JOANNA WU
K-3 | 4/7/22

Today I’ll be sharing about the new HMH Reading and Writing curriculum we’ve been using
this year. The focus of my presentation will be on the Writing Workshop portion, but
because the entire Language Arts curriculum is integrated, we will also touch on some
aspects of the Reading curriculum. I’m also passing out a handout that you can use to write
notes on and answer questions because we will be having a lot of discussion opportunities.

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 Share and discuss

• Share and discuss best strategies for implementing

an integrated Language Arts curriculum that equips
students with 21st century writing skills

Model and nurture

Today’s • Model and nurture creativity and creative

Objectives expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or

connections (ISTE Standards for Educators 6.d)

Collect and analyze

• Collect and analyze classroom- and school-based

data to identify opportunities to improve
curriculum, instruction, and assessment (Teacher
Leader Model Standards IV.a)

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Today’s objective is mainly to share and discuss best strategies for implementing an
integrated Language Arts curriculum that equips students with 21st century writing skills.
While doing so, we will also learn to model and nurture students’ creativity and creative
expression, as well as collect and analyze classroom data to identify opportunities to
improve our curriculum.

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 What is one thing
you like about the
new HMH Writing
Workshop
curriculum?

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Educational Hook Question (whole group): What is one thing you like about the new HMH
Writing Workshop curriculum?

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 Curriculum
Comparison
HMH Writing Workshop Harcourt Language
• Incorporates writing process, focal • Incorporates writing process, focal
text, writing sample text, writing sample
• Twelve 3-week modules • Six 6-week units
• Grammar minilessons included • Grammar skills for two weeks, then
throughout module Writing Workshop for one week
• Pacing matches HMH Into Reading • Pacing disconnected from Saxon
but disconnected from novels Phonics, Reading Street, novels
• Workbook mainly addresses writing • Workbook mainly addresses
process grammar and writing skills
• Includes supplemental
inquiry/research project option
• Reading assessment includes writing
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To start our discussion off, I wanted to draw up a comparison between our current HMH
Writing Workshop curriculum and our previous Harcourt Language writing curriculum.
Apologies to the kindergarten teachers – I couldn’t find a picture of your HMH Teacher
Guide and I also wasn’t sure if you used to use Harcourt Language – please don’t feel
excluded. As you can see, the main similarity between the two curricula is that they both
incorporate the writing process and they both make use of focal texts and writing samples
to serve as models for the students to analyze and follow. However, everything else is quite
different.

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 Kindergarten
Informational Text & Research
Opinion Narrative
Writing

Grade 1

K-3 HMH Opinion Letter, Opinion Essay

Oral Story, Imaginative Story,
Personal Narrative
Descriptive Essay, Procedural
Text, Biographical Essay,
Research Essay

Writing
Workshop Grade 2
Personal Narrative, Imaginative
Descriptive Essay, Personal
Poem (Poetry), Thank-You
Persuasive Text, Opinion Essay Essay, Procedural Text,
Story Letter (Correspondence)
Research Report

Persuasive Letter, Opinion
Essay, Persuasive Essay
Grade 3
Descriptive Essay, Expository
Personal Narrative, Story, Letter (Correspondence), Poem
Essay, Research Report,
Imaginative Story (Poetry)
Biographical Essay

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Since it’s our first year using HMH Writing Workshop, I also wanted to give an overview of
how the curriculum develops from kindergarten to third grade. In kindergarten, students
are introduced to four types of writing: opinion, narrative, informational text, and research
writing. The latter two I combined into one category, for reasons I’ll explain later. In first to
third grade, students then explore different forms of those types of writing. For instance,
they learn more about opinion writing by working on opinion letters, opinion essays,
persuasive texts, and so on. With narratives, they write their own oral story, imaginative
stories, personal narratives, etc. Research essays and reports eventually get merged into
informational text. Starting in second grade, students also begin to write poetry and letters.

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 Visual
21st Century Skill
Representation

C______________________

C______________________
What are the 4 Cs?
C______________________

C______________________

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One reason I really like HMH Writing Workshop is it does a great job of teaching students
21st century writing skills by incorporating the 4 Cs. I know on your worksheet you can peek
on the other side to see what the 4 Cs are, but let’s see if we can figure it out based on the
icons on the screen.

***Mastery Question (whole group): What are the 4 Cs?

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 Creativity
• Open-ended writing prompts
• Prewriting step includes drawing
and writing
• Structured graphic organizers

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With any Writing curriculum, it’s super important that students feel the freedom to express
their own creativity. I like how HMH works creativity not only into the writing prompts but
also into the prewriting steps. For the examples I’m sharing today, I’m going to focus on the
most recent writing project my students did, which was an imaginative story. You can see
that the prompt is open-ended enough for students to show their own creative flair while
still following the structure of an imaginative story. On the workbook page on the left, they
are allowed to draw and write while doing their planning, which I found very
developmentally appropriate for second grade. Meanwhile, the workbook page on the right
shows a structured graphic organizer that helps students plan out their writing while still
allowing them plenty of creative freedom.

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 Critical Thinking
• Analysis of focus text
• Annotation of writing sample
• Checklists for revising and editing
steps in writing process

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The act of writing in itself involves critical thinking, but HMH Writing Workshop also
teaches students critical thinking skills in terms of analyzing mentor texts. The first is a
focus text, usually a standalone book that is in the same genre that students will be writing.
After I read it out loud to the class, the next day I go through a few pages of it again so that
we can analyze certain aspects of it. For this writing project, we looked at the special
vocabulary or expressions that a character used, and students wrote down examples that
they liked, which you can see on the workbook page on the left. On the workbook page on
the right, students get to read a writing sample, sort of a model text. I always have them
annotate the text and look for specific writing elements that we are practicing. In this case,
students were learning how to write dialogue, so we underlined and observed how
dialogue was written. The last way students practice critical thinking is by using the
checklists during the revising and editing steps – I’ll show examples when we move on to
the next C, collaboration.

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 Collaboration
• Class read-aloud and analysis
of focus text
• Revising step
• Editing step

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Writing is sometimes seen as kind of an isolated activity, but HMH is very good about giving
students the chance to collaborate with others in a structured way. The first way is with the
class read-aloud and analysis of the focus text, which I discussed on the last slide. Students
also get to collaborate in smaller groups when they meet to revise and edit their writing.
The two workbook pages here are yes and no checklists that students use so that they are
accountable for staying on track during small group time. It did take a while for them to
understand how to use this collaboration time effectively, but I’ve seen huge improvements
from the beginning of the year to now. And yes, sometimes the kids do just circle all “yes”
without really collaborating, but this is when you ask them to show you what they’ve
revised or edited to make sure they are working together to improve each other’s work.

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 Communication
• Revising step
• Editing step
• Sharing step

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The final C is communication, which we can easily see is incorporated in the revising and
editing steps. The sharing step, which is when students read out their writing after
publishing, also helps students practice communication. What I like about HMH Writing
Workshop is that they also allow different means for students to communicate what they
need to revise. In the revising checklist, there was a yes/no question about whether
students incorporated dialogue effectively. This can be hard for 2nd graders to determine, so
I appreciated this additional workbook page, which has students draw their characters and
write out the dialogue. While working on this page, some of my students realized they
didn’t have dialogue in their story to draw. So it was an age-appropriate way for them to
double check that they had used dialogue.

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 How can we
incorporate all the
four Cs in each
lesson?

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So far, we’ve talked about the four Cs as distinct skills, but it’s also important to be able to
incorporate all of them in each lesson. I’d like you to take a look at this workbook page,
which is during the drafting stage. This student planned out what would happen at each
part of the story before starting her rough draft.

***Understanding Question (small groups): Which of the four C’s does this step of the
writing process incorporate? How can we incorporate all the four C’s?

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 Think About It
Think back to a Writing lesson you
taught last week. How did the
lesson incorporate the four Cs?

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“Your Turn” question (whole class): Think back to a Writing lesson you taught last
week. How did the lesson incorporate the four Cs?

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 Think About It
Which of the four Cs do you think
your class gets the least practice
with when using this curriculum?
Why is this so, and how can we
improve this going forward?

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Interpersonal Question (grade-level teams): Which of the four Cs do you think your
class gets the least practice with when using this curriculum? Why is this so, and
how can we improve this going forward?

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 Types of Opinion

• Persuasive Essay/Text/Letter
Writing • Opinion Essay/Letter

Narrative
What type of writing would
• Personal Narrative
you like to see more of in • Story (Imaginative, Creative, Oral)
HMH Writing Workshop?
Informational Text

• Essay (Descriptive, Personal, Biographical, Expository)

• Procedural or How-To Text
• Research Report

Miscellaneous

• Poem
• Letter or Thank You Letter

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I hope everyone benefited from looking more closely at how the 4 Cs and HMH Writing
Workshop can work together better. I have a few more questions I would like us to think
about during this presentation. The first is the types of writing taught in this curriculum. We
saw them before earlier in the presentation, but I’ve briefly summarized them in this table.

***Self-Expressive Question (whole class): What type of writing would you like to see
more of in HMH Writing Workshop?

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 Think About It
What is something new you want
to try with HMH Writing
Workshop this/next year?
or
What is something you would like
to improve about HMH Writing
Workshop this/next year?

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“Your Turn” question (personal): What is something new you want to try with HMH
Writing Workshop this/next year? Or What is something you would like to improve
about HMH Writing Workshop this/next year?

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 THANK YOU FOR
PA RT IC I PAT IN G.

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