Students learn how to identify key ideas in a sentence and record just a few words to capture meaning. This foundational skill helps them organize their thoughts before writing and builds confidence in working with source material.
Unit 2 – Writing from Notes
Building on outlining, students now begin turning their key word outlines into complete paragraphs. They will learn how to expand ideas, follow a checklist, and develop structure in their writing using clear sentence patterns.
Unit 3 – Retelling Narrative Stories
Students practice retelling short stories in their own words using a story sequence format. This helps them understand how to organize events, describe characters, and build writing with beginning, middle, and end.
Unit 4 – Summarizing a Reference
Students learn to pull important facts from a nonfiction source and summarize the content clearly. This unit develops research and paraphrasing skills while continuing to reinforce structure and clarity in writing.
Unit 5 – Writing from Pictures
With no source text provided, students use a series of images to create original stories. This strengthens creativity and teaches them how to structure a story based on visual cues while applying skills from earlier units.
Unit 6 – Summarizing Multiple References
Students read several short sources about a single topic, take notes from each, and combine the most important points into one paragraph. This builds critical thinking and helps them compare, combine, and organize information.
Unit 7 – Inventive Writing
In this creative unit, students learn to invent their own stories or characters using prompts and imagination. They apply previously learned structure and style techniques to develop original compositions.
Unit 8 – Formal Essay Models
Students are introduced to formal three-paragraph essay models. Each paragraph has a clear purpose, and students practice organizing their ideas into an introduction, body, and conclusion using a specific format.
Unit 9 – Writing Critiques
Students learn to write critiques by sharing their opinions about a story and supporting them with clear reasons and examples.
English 
Chinese