Free Teach Materials - Top
Below you’ll find links to the most current versions of some of our curriculum packets. You can download the packets listed here or e-mail the links to anyone else. These materials may be copied and distributed by any means print or electronic as long as all of the following conditions are met: (1) They are reproduced in their entirety including this notice; (2) They are used for non-commercial educational purposes only; and (3) They are not modified in any way other than reduction, enlargement, or binding. For more free materials, visit our website at www.ttms.org. To obtain a license to use these materials in connection with a commercial presentation or publication, write to us at info@ttms.org.
If You're Accountable for Literacy, Get a Good CPA - Top
This packet features a collection of materials based on the Content-Purpose-Audience strategy. This is perhaps the most powerful strategy we have. Though probably best suited to persuasive and informational writing, it can be used as a pre-writing strategy for any form. It can also be used as a reading strategy to dissect any type of text.
www.ttms.org/library/content_purpose_audience_packet.pdf
Step-by-Step Success: Reading and Writing with Transition-Action-Details - Top
This packet features a collection of materials based on the Transition-Action-Details strategy. Transition-Action-Details is a great strategy for all forms of narrative writing, biographies, history, processes, procedures, math algorithms, science experiments, directions, summaries, and just about anything that can be described in a step-by-step fashion. It's also a great reading strategy, too.
www.ttms.org/library/transition_action_details_packet.pdf
Critical Thinking: It's as Easy as What-Why-How - Top
This packet features a collection of materials based on the What-Why-Strategy. What-Why-How is one of our best strategies for helping students with logical arguments, expository and persuasive writing, thesis and support, essay questions, and constructed responses. It's also a terrific non-fiction reading strategy.
www.ttms.org/library/what_why_how_packet.pdf
Inspiring Instruction - Top
This is a collection of over 40 of our best mini-lessons and articles. These are the tools we use most frequently when we teach reading and writing at all grade levels. Each lesson is on its own page and no single article is longer than 750 words. These are things teachers can use once or use over and over, things that can be used in Reader's and Writer's Workshop classrooms and in traditional classrooms as well.
www.ttms.org/library/inspiring_instruction_packet.pdf
The Language Arts Survival Kit - Top
This is a collection of really useful tools. In fact, it's possible to teach pretty much an entire year with just the 20-or-so pages in this packet. It contains all of our best "organizers", those handy-dandy compilations of strategies and other ideas for effective instruction. There's probably the equivalent of 100+ lessons here, many of which can be used over and over throughout the school year.
www.ttms.org/library/language_arts_survival_kit_packet.pdf
Besting the Testing - Top
Teachers are working harder than ever these days to help kids learn. But schools still aren’t making much progress. Except for small gains in math, NAEP scores are flat over the last decade. And the folks who publish the ACT just released their assessment which shows that kids today are no more prepared for college than they were in the early 1990s. So what’s the secret to besting the testing? Read the articles in this packet and find out.
www.ttms.org/besting_the_testing.pdf
The Best of TTMS - Top
We’re always writing about something having to do with education. So periodically, we collect up a few current pieces that we think represent the best of our thinking and make them available to the public. Our purpose in doing this is to elicit response, to raise the level of dialog on important issues. So if you’ve got anything to tell us about anything we’ve said, please let us know. Drop us an e-mail at info@ttms.org and give us your best.
www.ttms.org/the_best_of_ttms.pdf
The Writing Student's Strategy Guide - Top
This packet contains a wide variety of writing strategies that can be used at all grade levels and across the curriculum. You’ll find mini-lessons, student samples, and tips for helping kids get the most out of each technique. You’ll also find information on sharing, conferencing, beating writer’s block, revision, beginnings and endings, and many other important topics writers face every day.
www.ttms.org/writing_students_strategy_guide_2003.pdf
Student Writing Samples - Top
We’ve collected over 100 authentic student writing samples and arranged them by grade level so you can see how writers develop. These samples have been carefully chosen thousands of papers to give you an accurate understanding of grade level benchmarks. These are not the highest kids in each grade level, nor are they the lowest. We have also taken pains to pick papers written by children from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.
www.ttms.org/writing_students_strategy_guide_2003.pdf
Prompted Writing - Top
To help kids understand how prompted writing differs from authentic writing, we’ve collected anchor papers at all score levels from high- stakes tests in narrative, expository, and persuasive modes and included 50 practice prompts. This packet explains why we should shun prompts in everyday classroom teaching in favor of student-selected topics. But it also explains how to help kids prepare for prompted assessments.
www.ttms.org/prompted_writing_2003.pdf
Read Like a Reader, Read like a Writer - Top
Explore the reading-writing connection with this fascinating approach to comprehension and response. Combining the best strategic teaching in reading with the same trait-based criteria you use for writing assessment, the tools in this packet accelerate literacy learning like nothing you’ve ever used before. This approach also provides a single unified model of reading comprehension instruction that can be shared across grade levels.
www.ttms.org/reading_comprehension_and_response_2003.pdf
Welcome to Writer's Workshop - Top
There’s simply no better way to run a writing classroom than to use Writer’s Workshop. But what exactly is Writer’s Workshop? This packet tells you in simple language you can understand and apply to your daily teaching. You’ll find a variety of practical tips for getting started and handy single-page organizers for helping you manage a classroom of writers effectively and efficiently.
www.ttms.org/writers_workshop_2003.pdf
Writing Across the Curriculum - Top
Everyone knows that all students should be writing in every subject they study. But how do you fit that in without losing time to cover your curriculum? This packet explores solutions to that dilemma and provides practical tools for helping teachers in the content areas bring best practice writing into their classrooms. With a few new ideas and a set of simple strategies, you’ll find it isn’t nearly as hard as you thought.
www.ttms.org/writing_across_the_curriculum.pdf
Writing Assessment - Top
Assessment is probably the most complex and controversial area in education today. What’s the difference between testing, assessment, grading, and reporting? This packet helps you sort it all out. It also provides you with some innovative assessment models you’ve probably never seen before. And while all the tools in this collection can be used to assess writing, they can also be used in other subjects.
www.ttms.org/writing_assessment_2003.pdf
What is Good Writing? - Top
We spend hour after hour drilling criteria for writing into our students, yet most of them never understand what those criteria mean. This packet provides a detailed discussion of each criteria item across six traits of writing quality: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. You’ll also find handy single-page organizers with trait language for both beginning and maturing writers.
www.ttms.org/writing_criteria_2003.pdf
An Introduction to the Writing Process - Top
Nothing in the teaching of writing seems more basic than the writing process. But there’s more to it than you might expect. We all think we know the writing process but few of us actually use it to help our students become more effective writers. In this short, introductory overview, you’ll get the basic concepts you need to manage classroom writing more effectively and to help your students develop a true process approach.
www.ttms.org/writing_process_2003.pdf
What can you say about a Book? - Top
Are you tired of boring book reports and bland character sketches? Ever wish your kids could engage in the same high quality authentic book discussions that adults do? This packet gives you the tools. But it also gives you an important perspective. By looking at authentic book reviews, and organizing real reader responses by topic, you can help your students develop a wide repertoire of analytical techniques.
www.ttms.org/book_talk_and_book_reviews_2003.pdf
The Five Facts of Fiction - Top
Still using the same old story grammar approach to fiction that your teachers taught you? Still drilling kids in theme, plot, problem, conflict, and all the other sacred cows of the old-fashioned Language Arts curriculum? Step into the 21st century with this dynamic set of strategies for helping kids write great stories and get more understanding and enjoyment out of the great stories they read.
www.ttms.org/five_facts_of_fiction.pdf
The Seattle Times Newspaper Strategy Guide - Top
For helping kids improve their abilities to read and write authentic non-fiction, there’s nothing better than the newspaper. In this unique guide to a big city paper, you’ll find interesting applications of high quality strategies and standards-based lessons that use articles from the daily paper. Based on the award-winning Effective Learning Series, these tools bring the power of the press right to your classroom.
www.ttms.org/newspaper_strategy_guide_2003.pdf
All's Well that Spells Well - Top
Tired of spelling lists, spelling sentences, and spelling tests that never have any positive effect on your students’ ability to spell when they write? You’re not alone. By now, virtually all teachers have discovered what spelling experts have knows for ages: traditional spelling programs are merely a waste of time. Find out what real spelling instruction is like with a sound introduction to contemporary research-based best practice.
www.ttms.org/spelling_2003.pdf
The Handouts - Top
If you’re already using the reading and writing strategies in our other packets, you’ll want these handy handouts, too. Each one contains a single strategy or criteria item attractively formatted on an 8.5 by 11 page. They’re perfect for mini-bulletin boards when you’re short on space or for kids to keep in their folders or notebooks. They also work well as overheads when you’re introducing concepts in mini-lessons.
www.ttms.org/handouts_2003.pdf
The Organizers - Top
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an entire curriculum on one or two sheets of paper? Well now you can with TTMS Instructional Organizers. Each organizer neatly summarizes the essential elements of a particular part of your curriculum from reading and writing strategies to criteria to the basic elements of Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop. Stop schlepping around those cumbersome notebooks. Get organized with TTMS Instructional Organizers.
www.ttms.org/organizers_2003.pdf
The Posters - Top
This set of materials is a collection of 28 black and white posters that match the strategies in the packets; they are also coordinated with the materials in the handouts and organizers. With a single strategy or criteria item printed on each 11 x 17 page, the posters are great for bulletin boards or other special displays. And if you want them even larger, just send the digital files to your local copy shop and have them enlarged.
http://www.ttms.org/posters_2003.pdf
Thanks to TTMS and allowing us to place some of their information here on our site. For further information about TTMS, please contact:
Steve Peha
President, Teaching That Makes Sense, Inc.
314 Bolin Forest Drive
Carrboro, NC 27510
Web: www.ttms.org
Tel: 919-967-3712
Fax: 919-882-9426
E-mail:stevepeha@ttms.org
"The best way to teach is the way that makes sense for you, your kids, and your community."
