Grade 4 Writing Overview and Pacing Guide
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Unit 6
Extending Personal
Narrative
Persuasive Letter
Literary Essay
Nonfiction Writing Matters
Exploring and Creating
Poetry
Improving
Research and
Content Area
Writing
4 weeks
4 weeks
4 weeks
4 weeks
3 weeks
Standards codes:
W.4.3
W.4.3a-e
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.9a
W.4.10
SL.4.1
SL.4.1a-d
SL.4.4
L.4.1f
L.4.2
L.4.2a
L.4.3a
Standards codes:
W.4.1
W4.1a-d
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.10
L.4.1f
L.4.2
L.4.2a
L.4.2c
L.4.2d
L.4.3a
Standards
codes:
W.4.1
W.4.1a-d
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.8
W.4.9
W.4.9a
W.4.10
Essential Question:
How can writers use
mentor texts to
improve the quality of
their writing?
How can ideas be
generated and selected
for personal narrative
writing?
How do writers
focus and sequence
ideas in a draft?
How can writers
revise and edit to
improve the quality of
their writing?
Essential Questions:
How can a point
of view be generated
and supported?
How are persuasive
letters organized?
How can
introductions,
reasoning, and
conclusions bring
cohesion to a
persuasive letter?
Essential Question:
How do writers
develop ideas for
literary
essays/opinion
pieces?
How can these ideas
be crafted into themes
with evidence from
the text?
In what ways do
writers use evidence
to support their
claim?
How are literary
essays organized?
SL.4.
1
SL.4.
1a-d
L.4.2
b
L.4.2
d
L.4.3a
Standards
codes:
W.4.2
W.4.2a-e
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.6
W.4.7
W.4.8
W.4.9
W.4.9b
W.4.10
SL.4.4
L.4.1f
L.4.2
L.4.2a
L.4.2d
L.4.3a
L.4.4c
L.4.6
Essential Questions:
How can writers generate ideas for
informational writing on topics they
know well?
How can writers gather and
organize information?
How can writers support
important ideas with specific,
relevant facts and details?
How can writers revise and edit
their writing?
Standards codes:
RL.4.2
RL.4.5
RL.4.10
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.10
L.4.2
L.4.2a
L.4.2d
L.4.3a
L.4.3b
L.4.5a
Essential Question:
Where do writers get
their ideas for writing
poetry?
How do poets make
decisions about the
words, shape, and sound
of a poem?
How can poets share
their own poems with
others?
Important Skills:
Generating
narrative entries.
Students learn how to
generate ideas for
personal narratives by
first thinking of special
people and places in
their lives.
Generating narrative
entries. Students learn
how to generate ideas
for personal narratives
by first thinking of
strong emotion.
Use concrete words
and phrases. Students
use concrete words and
phrases to convey
experiences and events
precisely.
Using sensory
details. Students learn
how to use senory
details to help the
reader experience the
story.
Building narratives
using a story
mountain. Students
learn how to plan and
organize their stories
using a story mountain.
Using transitional
words. Students learn
to use transitional
words and phrases to
manage the sequence
of events.
Including the
internal story.
Students slant their
Important Skills:
Analyzing persuasive
texts. Students study
mentor texts to
analyze the audience,
the issue, and the
evidence.
Generating ideas for
persuasive writing.
Students experiment
with ideas for creating
their own persuasive
letters.
Drafting a
persuasive text.
Students choose one
idea and begin to draft
a persuasive letter.
Drafting a second
persuasive text.
Students draft a
second persuasive
letter and then choose
one issue to develop
into a finished piece of
writing.
Creating strong
reasons. Students
check the strength of
their reasons and
make necessary
revisions.
Creating an
introduction.
Students experiment
with two ways to
create an introduction
for their persuasive
letters.
Building a
supporting
paragraph. Students
Important Skills:
Analyzing essays. St
udents analyze literar
y essays for
the themes and
supporting evidence.
Using transitions. St
udents use transitional
words and phrases to
link the evidence to
the theme.
Elaborating. Student
s elaborate on the
evidence by including
specific details from
the story.
Creating a
conclusion. Students
write a conclusion
that illustrates the
significance of the
theme.
Determining a
theme. Students dete
rmine the theme in a
new story and support
it with evidence.
Planning and
organizing. Students
plan and organize
their ideas for a
literary essay before
they write.
Building strong
introductions. Stude
nts learn how to
build strong
introductory paragrap
hs for their literary
essays.
Slanting the
evidence. Students le
Important Skills:
Important Skills:
Creating poetry
 Analyzing informational
using strong themes.
texts. Students study
Students write poems for
informational texts and locate
a class anthology in such
ways in which the authors use
a way that every word
style and structure to make their
matters.
writing interesting.
Considering
 Planning the categories for
different perspectives.
informational topics. Students
Students write poems by
generate topics, list subtopics, and choosing a perspective
and organizing their
think about everything they
ideas.
already know about these
Using line breaks
subtopics as they prepare to begin
and
verses. Students
writing about a topic.
shape poems by
 Writing about an
experimenting with line
informational topic.
breaks and verses.
Students choose a topic
Expressing feelings.
and record everything they know Students express their
about their topic.
feelings in poems by
using vivid nouns and
 Using precise language.
Students choose another topic and adjectives.
Using humor and
write all they know about each
repetition.
Students
subtopic using precise
include
humor
and
language. They select one topic
repetition
in
their
poems.
to develop into a final
Generating ideas for
writing project.
student anthologies.
 Creating a Table of
Students explore various
Contents. Students create
sources to determine
interesting headings for each of
topics for their own
their subtopics and record them
anthologies.
Using model poems.
on a Table of Contents.
Students use published
 Drafting topic sentences and
poems as models to
details. Students begin by
stating important information and write their own poems
and create fitting
then develop this information
endings.
using details as they draft their
Using comparisons.
first chapter.
Students create images
in the minds of readers
stories by telling the
internal story.
Elaborating.
Students learn how to
elaborate by writing
more than one sentence
about each thing they
want to say.
Revising leads.
Students learn how to
improve their leads by
studying the work of
published authors.
Revising
conclusions. Students
learn how to create
strong conclusions by
studying the work of
published authors.
Revision. Student
revise for meaning and
clarity.
Editing. Students
learn how to use a
revision/editing
checklist to edit their
writing.
Publishing personal
narratives. Students
write final drafts from
their revised/edited
personal narratives.
Celebrate student
work.
learn how to use
convincing language
and transitional words
and phrases to support
their point of view.
Building a second
supporting
paragraph. Students
learn how to use
information and
examples to support
their point of view.
Building a third
supporting
paragraph. Students
learn how to
emphasize a point to
support their point of
view.
Creating a
concluding
paragraph. Students
learn how to
summarize their point
of view and make an
appeal in their
concluding paragraph.
Revising. Students
revise their persuasive
letters using a
checklist.
Editing. Students edit
their persuasive letters
using a checklist.
Publishing. Students
write final drafts from
their revised and
edited persuasive
letters.
arn how to slant the
evidence to support
their theme.
Providing specific
details. Students pro
vide specific details to
support their
evidence.
Revising a literary
essay. Students revis
e their essays for
meaning and clarity.
Editing a literary
essay. Students use a
revision/editing
checklist to edit
their writing.
Publishing a literary
essay. Students creat
e final drafts from
their revised and
edited literary essays.
Sharing literary
essays. Students
share their published
literary essays with an
audience beyond the
teacher.
 Including text features.
Students make a plan for
including text features to make
their writing more clear and
interesting.
 Using description.
Students organize chapters using
description and include key word
and text features related to this
structure.
 Using Chronology. Students
organize chapters
using chronology and include key
word and text features related to
this structure.
 Using comparison. Students
organize chapters using
comparison and include key
words and text features related to
this structure.
 Using cause and effect or
problem/solution. Students
organize chapters using cause and
effect or problem/solution and
include key words and text
features related to this structure.
 Collecting information.
Students collect information from
a variety of sources for subtopics
that need more information.
 Using narrative text
structure. Students find places
where they can provide
information using narrative text
structure.
 Using transition words.
Students learn how to link ideas
within categories of
by using similes to make
comparisons in their
poems.
Experimenting with
shape. Students
experiment with
different ways to use
shape in their poems.
Using vivid verbs.
Students use vivid verbs
to help the reader picture
the action in their
poems.
Creating a rhythm.
Students experiment
with accented and
unaccented syllables to
create a rhythm, or beat,
in their poems.
Using punctuation.
Students use punctuation
carefully in their poems.
Revising poems.
Students revise their
poems for meaning,
effective use of words
and phrases, and
structure.
Editing poems.
Students edit their
poems for capitalization,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Publishing poetry
anthologies. Students
create poetry anthologies
from their revised and
edited drafts.
Sharing poetry
anthologies. Students
share their anthologies
Assessment Tasks:
Assessment Tasks:
Conferring Checklist
Revision/Editing
Checklist
Assessment Rubric
Writing Continuum
Conferring
Checklist
Revision/Editing
Checklist
Assessment Rubric
Writing Continuum
Assessment Tasks:
Conferring
Checklist
Revision/Editing
Checklist
Assessment Rubric
Writing Continuum
information using transitional
words to link ideas.
 Creating clear
introductions. Students
experiment with ways to
introduce their topics clearly.
 Creating effective
conclusions. Students write
conclusions that relate back to the
most important information
about their topic.
 Creating glossaries. Students
organize their important
vocabulary words in alphabetical
order and then locate and record
the definitions.
 Revising and
editing informational texts.
Students revise and edit their
informational texts.
 Publishing informational
texts.
Students create informational
books from their revised and
edited drafts
Assessment Tasks:
Revision/Editing Checklist
Assessment Rubric
Writing Continuum
with an audience beyond
the teacher.
Assessment Tasks:
Revision/Editing
Checklist
Assessment Rubric
Writing Continuum