Grade 2 Writing Curriculum

Family-facing version of the grade 2 writing curriculum

Quarterly Overview of Grade 2 Writing

The objectives and outcomes for each unit are common across FCPS and based on the Virginia Standards of Learning. The pacing by quarter and by week provides an example of how the curriculum can be organized throughout the year. Teacher teams may adjust the pacing or order of units to best meet the needs of students.

Units and Details

Unit 1: Building a Community of Writers

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills:
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules. 
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond.
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation. 
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details. 
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication.
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information.
    • Retell information shared by others. 
    • Restate and follow multi-step directions. 
    • Give multi-step directions. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Demonstrate an understanding of oral early literacy skills:
    • Create oral stories to share with others. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository: 
    • Understand writing as a process.
    • Identify audience and purpose.
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing. 
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing. 
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end.
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity. 
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English:
    • Capitalize all proper nouns and the word I.
    • Use correct spelling

Unit 2: Personal Narratives

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills:
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules.
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond.
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation.
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details. 
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication. 
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use.
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository:
    • Understand writing as a process. 
    • Identify audience and purpose. 
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing.
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing. 
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end. 
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity.
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and Standard English:
    • Recognize and use complete sentences.
    • Use and punctuate declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences. 
    • Capitalize all proper nouns and the word I.

Unit 3: Nonfiction: All About Books

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills:
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules. 
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond.
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation.
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication. 
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information.
    • Retell information shared by others. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Maintain legible printing and begin to make the transition to cursive. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository:
    • Understand writing as a process. 
    • Identify audience and purpose.
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing. 
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing. 
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end. 
    • Write facts about a subject to support a main idea. 
    • Write to express an opinion and provide a reason for support. 
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity. 
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English: 
    • Use past and present verbs.

Unit 4: Poetry

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills;
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules.
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information.
    • Retell information shared by others. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions.

Unit 5: Realistic Fiction

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills: 
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules.
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond. 
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation.
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details. 
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication.
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository:
    • Understand writing as a process. 
    • Identify audience and purpose.
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing.
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing.
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end. 
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity. 
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English: 
    • Use singular and plural nouns and pronouns.

Unit 6: Persuasive Letters

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills: 
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules.
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond. 
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation.
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details.
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication. 
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information. 
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Maintain legible printing and begin to make the transition to cursive: 
    • Begin to write capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet. 
    • Begin to sign his/her first and last names. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository: 
    • Understand writing as a process. 
    • Identify audience and purpose. 
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing.
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing.
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end. 
    • Write facts about a subject to support a main idea. 
    • Write to express an opinion and provide a reason for support.
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail. 
    • Revise writing for clarity. 
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English: 
    • Use knowledge of simple abbreviations. 
    • Use correct spelling for commonly used sight words, including compound words and regular plurals.
    • Use commas in salutation and closing of a letter.

Unit 7: Illustrator and Author Study

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills:
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules.
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond. 
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation.
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details.
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication. 
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions.
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information.
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository: 
    • Understand writing as a process. 
    • Identify audience and purpose. 
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing. 
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing. 
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end.
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity. 
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English:
    • Recognize and use complete sentences. 
    • Use and punctuate declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences. 
    • Use correct spelling for commonly used sight words, including compound words and regular plurals.

Unit 8: Research

Students will be able to: 

  • Use oral communication skills:
    • Listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules. 
    • Use oral language for different purposes: to inform, persuade, entertain, clarify, and respond. 
    • Speak audibly with appropriate voice level, phrasing, and intonation. 
    • Share information orally with appropriate facts and relevant details. 
    • Use increasingly complex sentence structures in oral communication. 
    • Begin to self-correct errors in language use. 
    • Participate as a contributor and leader in collaborative and partner discussions. 
    • Ask and answer questions to seek help, get information, or clarify information.
    • Work respectfully with others and show value for individual contributions. 
    • Create a simple presentation using multimodal tools.
  • Write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository:
    • Understand writing as a process.
    •  Identify audience and purpose. 
    • Use prewriting strategies to generate ideas before writing. 
    • Use strategies for organization according to the type of writing.
    • Organize writing to include a beginning, middle, and end.
    • Write facts about a subject to support a main idea. 
    • Expand writing to include descriptive detail.
    • Revise writing for clarity.
  • Edit writing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and Standard English: 
    • Recognize and use complete sentences.
    • Use and punctuate declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences. 
    • Capitalize all proper nouns and the word I. 
    • Use singular and plural nouns and pronouns.
    • Use apostrophes in contractions and possessives.
    • Use contractions and singular possessives. 
    • Use knowledge of simple abbreviations. 
    • Use correct spelling for commonly used sight words, including compound words and regular plurals. 
    • Use past and present verbs.
    • Use adjectives correctly. 
  • Conduct research by using available resources to gather information and answer questions to complete a research product: 
    • Generate topics of interest.
    • Generate questions to gather information. 
    • Identify pictures, texts, people, or media as sources of information.
    • Find information from provided sources. e) Organize information in writing or a visual display.
    • Describe difference between plagiarism and using own words.

Virginia Department of Education Resources

Assessments

Student assessments are part of the teaching and learning process.

  • Teachers give assessments to students on an ongoing basis to
    • Check for understanding 
    • Gather information about students' knowledge or skills.
  • Assessments provide information about a child's development of knowledge and skills that can help families and teachers better plan for next steps in instruction.

For testing questions or additional information about how schools and teachers use test results to support student success, families can contact their children's schools.

In Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), second grade tests focus on basic literacy and numeracy development.

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