Writing
At a restaurant recently, I overheard part of the conversation at an adjoining table. A man with a stentorian voice was complaining about one of his co-workers. “And the worse part,” the man boomed, “is that this guy constantly tries to take credit for my ideas, which you know is
Want your students to ask questions experienced writers ask automatically? Available at no cost from Curriculum Pathways, Writing Reviser allows writers to focus on purpose and audience, essay structure, and use of written language (sentence economy, variety, power, and clarity). As a result, students learn to express themselves with greater precision and
Let’s face it: teaching students to write well is a remarkably complex task. Whether they’re explicating an Emily Dickinson poem or reporting lab results for a science class, student writers must express themselves clearly and forcefully—and that usually involves revision. As James Baldwin knew, rewriting is both painful and
Are you one of the millions of writers using Microsoft Word, for work or life? Whether you are writing a narrative essay for your 5th-grade teacher due in two days, summarizing your methods and results for the lab report due by the end of the semester, drafting a new blog
The purpose of our innovative Writing Reviser tool is both significant and, I think, subtle—the tool aims to teach students how to write. No one would argue that this is easy. It isn't. We’ve all seen writing programs that take the “easy” path—marking student errors, subjecting students to endless “drill and kill”
Spring brings warmer weather, blooming flowers, and new resources from Curriculum Pathways! Don't miss these exciting lessons and updates. Writing Reviser Our April release features dramatic new enhancements to Writing Reviser. To improve the sentence economy section, Writing Reviser now highlights expletives—words or phrases (e.g., "There are...") that often gum
It goes by many names. Proficiency-based education, mastery-based education, standards-based education, and—perhaps the most commonly used appellation these days—competency-based education. Whatever name you know it by, you’ve probably noticed that schools at every level are increasingly making the transition from a seat-time system of grade levels and courses to one
Writing Reviser, the free Curriculum Pathways writing tool, allows student writers to focus on purpose and audience, essay structure, and expressiveness in their own drafts — rather than in some abstract textbook example in which they have no investment and (alas, too often) little interest. Available on the web and as a
Working to reinforce the virtues extolled in our Writing Reviser, we’ve prepared a series of English language arts videos starring a lovable pit-bull named Muggs—aptly named after a dog owned by the famous American writer James Thurber. The synergy between the two tools has helped many students learn to write more forcefully,
The Byzantine particulars of documenting sources within a research paper and correctly formatting a final Works Cited page have frustrated students and teachers since the invention of papyrus. Worse, struggling to research the proper way to cite research sources steals valuable time from activities central to any writing class: refining the essay’s
Strings of choppy prepositional phrases often cripple student writing—especially when those phrases attempt to compensate for a weak verb, a tactic akin to filling up your radiator as a remedy for running out of gas. Consider this defilement of my first sentence: A common type of failing in writing by
A simple problem has long prevented students from revising their papers to correct mistakes with relative clauses: they can’t identify those clauses. Writing Reviser eliminates that problem. We highlight all the relative pronouns in an essay and present arrows pointing toward the word to which it relates. Students simply follow
Too often beginning writers revise their work without a clear sense of purpose. Sadly, that often results in a paper that becomes different rather than better, a process akin to someone blindly twisting and re-twisting a Rubik’s cube, uniformed by a larger strategy. The process can be painful to watch.
One of the easiest ways to lose a reader is to write a series of sentences with the exact same structure: “See Spot run. Watch him jump. Pet his head.” Compare that juvenile effect to one in which the student purposefully varies her sentence lengths: “Sitting in an expensive restaurant,
“Prefer active voice” may be the single most frequently dispensed injunction to improve writing. Strunk and White, George Orwell, and all student handbooks of the past 50 years extol the virtue of active verbs. But two problems often go unremarked: Students cannot reliably identify passive constructions in their own work.
Students increasingly use Google Docs to complete essays, lab reports, blog posts, and other writing tasks. That’s why Curriculum Pathways has created free digital resources; they include a revision add-on and a punctuation tool—both of which help students who use Google Docs improve any type of writing. So if you’re attending
I don’t need to make the case that providing students with models of good writing can be a powerful tool for improving their work. That’s why I want to feature in this Buried Treasures post the Argument Writing section from inContext, our massive network of terms, definitions, and activities that
For English language arts, any discussion of Buried Treasures would be incomplete without a mention of the research wizard from the Writing Navigator series. The four products in this series guide students through the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, and publishing). But students who wish to support their ideas with quotations
If you are a regular reader of the blog posts on this site, you may recall that our curriculum specialists occasionally identify and describe some of their favorite SAS Curriculum Pathways resources. For example, 5 SAS Curriculum Pathways Hidden Gems highlights valuable—but often overlooked—lessons in math, English, science, social studies,
The SAS Curriculum Pathways team suffered a loss recently, as writer and editor Tim McBride’s American Staffordshire Terrier (Pit bull), Muggs passed away at the age of 10. Now, many of us have pets and we don’t usually spend much time chronicling them here. But Muggs was different. Over the
Too often I hear my physics students complain about writing: they think it's important only in English classes. As teachers we know otherwise, but incorporating more writing into our classes can be demanding--especially when we have to get through core content. Working at SAS Curriculum Pathways this summer, I've discovered Writing
If you’ve been looking for an engaging punctuation tool that students can use on their tablets or phones, your search is over. Punctuation Rules!, one of our most popular web-based resources, has been converted to HTML5 and is now mobile ready. New Features The updated tool includes a few
Among the millions of Google Drive users are many students who increasingly use Google Docs to create essays, lab reports, blog posts, and other forms of communication. That’s one reason why Curriculum Pathways created the SAS Writing Reviser Add-on, a tool that helps students using Google Docs improve any type
While students who just took the SAT wait a few excruciating months for their scores, let’s take a moment to reflect on some of the College Board’s 2016 SAT changes. We believe some key logistical and pedagogical elements of the redesign are good for both students and teachers. Here’s why. First, let's
Perhaps it’s the frenzied primary campaign season that’s to blame. But for some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of our public discourse. More specifically, I’ve noticed that our political candidates are increasingly unwilling—or unable—to answer questions with logical, detailed answers. When asked to explain why
One of my goals a few years back was to become a blogger. I’m not a writer. I deal with numbers not words. So panic often set in when I started to write. But then I realized that—panic or not—I had to step out of my comfort zone if I wanted
As 2015 comes to a close, let's look back on the great year at SAS Curriculum Pathways. Again, we saw record-breaking new users, soaring student usage, and tons of app downloads. While we love all of our 1,500+ resources, here are the ones that teachers and students used the most in
Since we launched the Writing Reviser Google Doc Add-on, I’ve been recommending it to everyone I meet: professional development participants, friends, colleagues, waiters, strangers at gas stations, everyone. Simply put, it’s an exciting, free tool that will improve your written work. But truth be told, while I have long familiarity
Even for the most vigilant, experienced writers, clarity can be an elusive goal. Again and again, no matter how hard we try to eliminate any trace of ambiguity, an infuriating gap often separates what we think we are saying from what we actually say. Consider this simple exercise. Insert the
As often as I can, I like to ask English teachers about the types of SAS Curriculum Pathways resources their students respond to and enjoy. Many of them will talk about Writing Navigator, Exploring Poetry about Sports, or Punctuation Rules! And I frequently hear about how much students enjoy the
