Questioning the Labels for the Units of Study in Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing

Last week we had a professional development day that was dedicated to writing curriculum. This was a much needed pause from the day-to-day hustle of the classroom, especially as we are trying to understand and implement the CCSS and the new Units of Study in Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann, 2014). As a department, we agreed to tackle our final writing unit of the year. At the 8th grade level, this was the Position Paper unit, which the TCRWP authors labeled as our "Informational" writing unit.

Since we use the Understanding by Design (UbD) unit planning process (Wiggins & McTighe), we started by unpacking the CCSS informational writing standard, examining what it looked like for the years before and after us as well as what is new and unique to our grade. As is the case with Narrative and Argument writing, there are only a few new things in 8th grade compared to 7th, usually bumping up the level of abstraction or depth of support. The implication, though, is that the grades before us must do their job in order for students to be ready to add the new piece at our grade. This is the only way the spiral will work.

We then went to our Rubicon Atlas mapping site to continue our UbD work: identifying enduring understandings and essential questions, including knowledge and skill objectives based on the demands of the standards, revising assessments and rubrics. All this was done fairly quickly, as the unit focus wasn't changing much from what we'd taught before.

Finally, we were ready to tackle the Learning Activities. We opened the "Informational" unit, Position Papers, and double-checked our list of standards against the list provided in the back of the book. Wait, what? The only genre-specific standards listed in the book were argument standards. I thought this was our "Informational" unit, so where were the informational standards?

Next we started digging into the lessons. Indeed, the focus of this whole unit was arguing one side of an issue and backing it up with evidence and explanation. It is a great unit, full of focused strategies and engaging topics, but it sits firmly in the argument arena, not informational. Yes, there is a component of research to find evidence to back up your side of the argument, and to find counterarguments, and yes, that research would have to be explained  in an informational way to readers who may not have the same background knowledge. But the thrust is still to argue one side. How am I supposed to assess the informational standards?

This is not the first time I have questioned the labeling of the TCRWP units. The 8th grade "Narrative" unit is Investigative Journalism. As I taught that unit earlier in the year, the teaching points were mostly about getting your information across in an interesting way-- AKA Informational writing. We taught fantasy short story writing as our Narrative writing in English Language Arts, so I felt solid about meeting those standards through that unit.

My 7th grade colleagues also ran into a labeling question. The 7th grade Literary Essay unit is considered their Informational unit; they also have Realistic Fiction for Narrative, and The Art of Argument for Argument units. Our Literary Essay unit is labeled as our Argument unit. What makes a Literary Essay more informational vs. more argumentative?

Perhaps we should rearrange the labels of the 8th grade English Language Arts writing units this way:

• Literary Essay: Informational (work with 7th grade to see how they did it as an informational piece and add our 8th grade bits onto it)
• Fantasy Short Story: Narrative
• Position Paper: Argument

I suppose we could leave the Literary Essay unit as an argument unit, knowing we are covering informational writing in our Week Without Walls Investigative Journalism unit in Social Studies. As long as the students receive the teaching, it is not so important that it happens during ELA. Besides the Week Without Walls project is outside the Social Studies curriculum, so it's already in a gray area.

I respect the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project staff and the work they do with curriculum. The units are demanding and full and vertically articulated. My colleague thinks the middle school units were thrown together hastily to get something out on the coat tail of the elementary units of study. I don't see that within the content of the units themselves, but perhaps she's right when it came to labeling the units to meet the CCSS modes of writing.

At the end of the day, as long as the students are being taught how to write in those various modes of writing, does it really matter how the units are labeled? Now I've got to go back into my Atlas Rubicon unit plans and adjust the standards. I don't think Jay McTighe would approve.