1. Date and Reflection

I have taken many SIM Learning Strategies and have enjoyed all of them. The Paragraph Writing Strategy allows me to help my students write meaningful and informational paragraphs. This will allow them to be successful essay writers. I enjoyed teaching the strategy and my students enjoyed learning it!

Completing the SIM Paragraph Writing Strategy has been an enriching experience that I plan to implement with students. This strategy provides a structured approach to writing, helping students develop clear and coherent paragraphs with strong topic sentences, supporting details, and smooth transitions. One of the most valuable aspects is the emphasis on planning before writing. Teaching students to outline their ideas will make their writing more focused and reduce revisions. Additionally, the strategy encourages self-evaluation, enabling students to identify areas for improvement and refine their writing skills. In conclusion, I look forward to using this strategy to support students in becoming more effective writers. 

Our district is considering using this format for our tier 2 interventions. We will be experimenting with these strategies and analyzing the results. 

The structure of this SIMS course allowed me to reflect and refine my writing instruction.  This class was designed for junior/high school students, but the instructor, Marc Markell donated extra time to tailor the content and delivery so that it was developmentally appropriate for my elementary students.  The systematic instruction was easy to differentiate to meet writer's individual levels.  After one use, my teacher's edition is highlighted and annotated, and ready to go for next year's class!

 I was not aware this course was designed for high school students.  However, our instructor has guided us along the way and revamped all material to meet the needs to our younger learners.  I took this course to become better at teaching my students how to be more skilled in their writing.

After completing the Paragraph Writing Strategy training, I feel more equipped to teach my students this approach to writing. The systematic approach taught during the training has provided me with a clearer understanding of how to construct cohesive paragraphs. I now feel more confident in my ability to communicate my ideas in a concise and organized manner. Overall, the training has enhanced my writing skills and will undoubtedly benefit me in various personal and professional endeavors. I do think it is important for students to have a strong understanding of the sentence writing strategies in order to complete this strategy correctly. 

Classes @ ETSU

Once students have become proficient with sentence writing with the types of sentences, this strategy of paragraph writing gives them the next steps. Again, structure and layout of the paragraph strategy will help even the reluctant writers become more comfortable writing paragraphs.

I have found this to be a strategy that works well in all three tiers.  Most recently my co-teacher and I taught our 3rd grade writers this strategy and found it to be very successful! 

I learned the Paragraph Writing Strategy 7 years ago and immediately implemented it with my middle school student. I was in awe of what great writing my student produced once they mastered and began using the strategy. Over the next few year, SIM Paragraph Writing became part of our 7th grade curriculum. We have since added Theme Writing as part of our 8th grade ELA curriculum, making SIM writing strategies central to our ELA curriculum buildingwide. I have since become a literacy coach split between the middle school and high school. Although Dotti Turner is still our paid consultant, my job is to help teachers in grades 7-12 implement and generalize the SIM writing strategies. She can attest to the fact that I taught this strategy with fidelity to many classes over many years.