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The Office of Student Support Services prides itself on providing appropriate services to students and works to maintain communication between staff and parents. Over the past year and a half, our middle school and high school departments have worked to develop a writing handbook for our students and staff. The aim was to create/modify various graphic organizers and strategies that our special education staff would use throughout the years to assist students in the writing process. Consistency with the methodology as well as practice would help to ensure that our students are mastering and using these skills with minimal support from others.

Each strategy below has a complete set of instructions on how the method is used, along with its purpose and research to support its use. There is also a set of graphic organizers to accompany each writing strategy. Please feel free to download this handbook and use it with your child. We hope that you and your child will utilize these materials in conjunction with their academic support and instruction with our teachers. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child's case manager.

Strategy	Overview	How You Use It (pdf files)	Graphic Organizers (pdf files)
Brainstorming	To help students develop ideas, organize these ideas and use this information to beign the writing process.	Brainstorming Strategy.pdf	Brainstorming Graphic Organizer.pdf Attribute Graphic Organizer.pdf
Cause and Effect	To help students organize ideas to see cause and effect relationships to facilitate further understanding of a topic in order to use this information to begin the writing process.	Cause and Effect Strategy.pdf	Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer.pdf
Compare and Contrast	To help students organize ideas and discriminate between similarities/differences to facilitate further understanding of a topic in order to use this information to begin the writing process.	Compare and Contrast Strategy.pdf	Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizer.pdf Venn Diagram Graphic Organizer.pdf
KWL	To help students organize ideas and background knowledge on a topic to facilitate further understanding of a topic in order to use this information to begin the writing process.	KWL Strategy.pdf	KWL Graphic Organizer.pdf

Strategy	Overview	How You Use It (pdf files)	Graphic Organizers (pdf files)
Developing a Thesis	To use as a strategy for developing a thesis statement.	Developing a Thesis Statement Strategy.pdf	Developing a Thesis Statement Graphic Organizer.pdf
Essay Outline Strategy	To use as a traditional outline strategy that helps students organize ideas,clarify information, and brainstorm additional information. This is typically used at the high school level.	Essay Outline Strategy.pdf	Essay Outline Graphic Organizer.pdf Narrative or Thematic Essay Graphic Organizer.pdf Persuasion map.pdf
Hamburger Method	To use as a strategy for writing 3 paragraph persuasive and expository essays. This is typically used at the middle school level.	Hamburger Method Strategy.pdf	Hamburger Method Reference Sheet.pdf Hamburger Method (3-paragraph) Graphic Organizer.pdf Hamburger Method(additional mid.paragraphs).pdf Houghton Mifflin Sandwich Chart.pdf

Strategy	Overview	How You Use It (pdf files)	Graphic Organizers (pdf files)
Revising Checklist	To help improve the development and organization of ideas withiin a writing piece.	Revising Checklist Strategy.pdf	Revising Checklist Graphic Organizer.pdf
COPS Editing Strategy	To help improve the basic mechanics and overall readability of a writing piece.	COPS Editing Strategy.pdf	COPS Editing Checklist Graphic Organizer Version I.pdf COPS Editing Checklist Graphic Organizer Version II.pdf

Reference Material	Overview	Reference Sheet (pdf files)
Dead Words	Words that tend to be overused and, therefore, lose their power. During the revising process,use these synonyms to replace dead words.	Dead Words Reference Sheet.pdf
Transition Words	Key words that help the writer state or imply connections between words.	Transition Words Reference Sheet.pdf