Writing a Paragraph Lesson, RACE Complete Teaching Unit

Do you need a basic writing formula for any student, any level, and any subject? If your students struggle with structure and content and are facing standardized testing with constructed responses or timed writing, this no prep teaching pack is just what you and your students need to stay the course and win the race to the finish line!

Included:

• Lecture, editable and pdf
• Two note-taking sheets, sketch notes and a foldable
• Guided practice samples
• Student exemplars
• Graphic organizer: This can be used with any paragraph that you will require students to write. It can also be easily expanded to a full essay.
• Chart your writing scores
• Interactive rubric
• Classroom Poster: Hang in your room or print a copy of each student’s notebook.

My RACE strategy takes a writer from the beginning of a paragraph to the end. Therefore, it can be expanded to an entire essay. Using a brain-based mnemonic device such as this one frequently will produce so much growth and improvement in writing fluency.

Want some ready-to-go prompts for weekly practice that work perfectly with this strategy?

• Middle School Paragraph of the Week
• High School Paragraph of the Week

Classroom success stories from other teachers who have loved this resource:

♥ "This is great for me to use with my speech and language students. It allows me to break down the writing process into short sessions. I also like the examples to share before writing."

♥ "I like to present more than one organizational strategy to my students for expository writing. This resource is eye-catching, and creates a fun acronym that I think many of my students will remember and use to help them organize their paragraphs."

♥ "This is AMAZING. So incredibly helpful for students - a great reference for them as we go through out the semester/year!!"

♥ "I love RACE. My students are successful when they use it for short answer constructed responses. Thanks for the freebie. I'm going to blow these up to poster size for my classroom!"

♥ "Thank you! I appreciate you including a sample response - it pulls everything together, making it much more easy to teach students, especially if it is their first time ever seeing RACE. The students I work with are very low level, so mnemonic devices and formulas like RACE are necessary to our survival! There are so many different strategies out there that essentially teach the same thing, just with their own little twist. However, I don't feel my 9th grade students were as successful as they could have been in past years with certain ones I've tried. I used to feel that giving them more details and steps to complete would spell it out for them better, but I think it overwhelmed and frustrated them, instead. The simplicity of the RACE strategy, when presented to students, makes writing seem much less stressful and demanding. I also teach Spanish, so some years I don't have any English classes. This year, though, I have two 10th grade classes, and I've never taught 10th grade English before!! I'm going to try to use RACE all year long - I think it is going to make a big difference! Thank you - I really appreciate all your hard work and help! :-)"

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For more ideas and inspiration:

Faulkner's Fast Five Blog

Julie's Classroom Stories on Instagram

Julie's Classroom Stories on Facebook

Teaching Middle and High School English Facebook Group

Yearbook and Journalism Facebook Group

Pinterest

Terms of Use: Please one classroom use only. Not to be shared online without proper security. Additional licenses sold at a discount at checkout. Art and images credited inside file.