Planning for Wit & Wisdom

As you prepare for teaching W&W in your classroom, it is very important to put in work before you teach. Following the planning protocols provided by Great Minds is imperative to the success of teaching the program. Great Minds provides extensive resources and support to help you plan accordingly.

If you have not read the W&W Implementation Guide, start with that! Read it. Make notes and mark important pages as you go. We often ask students to complete a close reading of material. Teachers should do the same with this. This is the most important thing to do before you start digging in to the planning protocols.

Teachers are greatly encouraged to read the Wit & Wisdom Implementation Guide and Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom. You are also encouraged to send home the Family Tip Sheets as well.

Teachers are encouraged to meet weekly with their team to plan and discuss the work they are doing within W&W. Instructional coach attendance at these meetings would be beneficial for consistency with instruction across grade levels.

Each year teachers should begin by reflecting on their experiences from the previous school year. Click the button below for guidance from a Great Minds blog post.

Teachers will want to develop norms and practice the routines and processes of the curriculum by beginning the year with Module 0. Here is the document for Module 0 grades 3-5.

Through Module 0, teachers and students gain familiarity with key elements such as the following:

• The Content–Craft–Create framework
• Text sets and various text types, including art
• The Content Stages (Wonder, Organize, Reveal, Distill, Know)
• Writing-to-learn routines (e.g., annotating, summarizing, using evidence organizers, responding to text-dependent questions)

• The Craft Stages (Examine, Experiment, Execute, Excel)

More On Module 0:

• Lessons are 50 minutes
• There is no need to use the journal for this module
• These lessons will not be as rigorous as the lessons in Modules 1-4, but they set the practices and routines.
• The stories discuss overcoming challenges
• The stories stress the importance of writing about what you read and responding to ideas from a book
• The books stress an appreciation for the visual arts within the texts
• The lessons promote a love of reading
• The lessons set students up for success throughout the school year.

In order to vary student experiences across grade levels:

Grade 3 will use the text Thank You Mr. Falker.

Grade 4 will us the text Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan

Grade 5 will use the text A Child of Books, Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston or “From Slavery to Poetry: Phillis Wheatley,” Marcia Amidon Lusted.

These alternate texts can be found on page 4 of the Module 0 Teacher Edition.

Appendix A of Module 0 also offers alternative texts for WCS teachers in grades 4 and 5:

Grade 4 “Ode to Teachers,” Pat Mora text: http://witeng.link/0776

Grade 5 “In the Library,” Charles Simic Text: http://witeng.link/0777

After completing Module 0, where you are setting up routines, the focus at the beginning of the school year should be on the Module Study Protocol for Module 1. You will repeat this same process as you begin each module. This is where it all begins, understanding of the module set up and content. Instructional Coaches would be willing to to meet with teachers to talk about the module study protocol.

Here's a little bit of background information to help you understand the design:

• Wit & Wisdom was written by teachers following backward design which is why the company chooses to unpack the Module level first and then dig deeper into the rest of the protocols.
• There are 3 Protocols: 1) Module Protocols 2) Focusing Question Protocols 3) Lesson Study Protocols
• You can find an introduction to these protocols here.
• Module Study Protocols are suggested as the first step in the backward design process.

Suggestions for Preparation to Teach Modules 1-4

• Read the texts that are used before working with the students.
• Display the essential questions on the board(sentences strips were suggested). These should stay up during the entire module.
• Focus questions change with each activity. These should be displayed during the activity only.
• Lesson questions change with lesson and should be displayed during the daily lesson.

These Great Minds resources may support you in setting, planning, and implementing goals.

• Wit & Wisdom Teacher Edition Appendices
  • Appendix A: Text Complexity
  • Appendix B: Vocabulary
  • Appendix C: Answer Keys, Rubrics, and Sample Responses
  • Appendix D: Volume of Reading
• Wit & Wisdom in Sync Great Minds teacher videos (hopefully coming soon!)
• Great Minds Digital Help Center

Davis, Vicki. “Habits of Mind for the New Year: 10 Steps to Actually Accomplish Your Resolutions.” Edutopia.

Hoerr, Thomas R. “Principal Connection / Goals That Matter.” Educational Leadership, vol. 72, no. 1, 2009.

Rambo, Ernie. “Back to School, Back to Learning: How Teachers Can Set Their Own Professional Learning Goals.” Education Week.

Short, Jim, and Stephanie Hirsh. The Elements: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning. Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2020.

Teaching and keeping the pace with Wit & Wisdom can be daunting in the beginning. The goal is to each one lesson per day. Pay attention to the time allotment that is given in your manuals. Try to stick to that amount of time! Set a timer for yourself if you need to. Some teachers may find this difficult, but it will help you to develop your pacing skills as you move forward. Here are some helpful hints from our Great Minds Rep:

• Know your content stages really well! The beginning stages should not take as long as some of the higher order stages.
• Do not spend a lot of time on the Welcome and Launch sections of the lesson. Keep those short.
• If there are 6 questions for students to answer, pick the top three and move on.
• Annotate your lessons...highlight the teacher actions in one color and highlight the student actions in another. This visual will help you to keep the pace.

Click below for some other ideas to help you keep the pace.

Wit & Wisdom is a knowledge building program. The goal is to make sure that all students can access the text in some way, providing an equitable literacy learning experience for all students. The following document has some extensive scaffolding ideas. This is a working document and more ideas will be added as we continue to grow our understanding of how to scaffold for all of our students. So, keep this link handy so that you can check back in for updates every once in a while.

Students use a journal for each module study. There are three sections: Response Journal, Vocabulary Journal, and Knowledge Journal. Originally the company lists having a 3 journals per module, but the Great Minds has offered better, more sustainable and cost effective ideas. There are several ways to set this up.

1. Use a 3 Ring Binder with three tabs and clean it out after each module.
2. Use one spiral notebook for each module and use tabs(post-it) to divide it into three sections.
3. Use a composition notebook for each module and use tabs(post-it) to divide it into three sections.

Your building will need to identify students who need foundational literacy skill work and figure out how to attend to those needs. This work will need to happen outside of W&W time. In order to identify student needs, start with iReady data and peel back the layers using district assessments. These will help identify specific student leaning needs. District Principals, Curriculum Specialists and Instructional Coaches can help with this process.

• Some schools utilize Fundations for Grade 3 and dedicate 30 minutes per day teaching from that program to all students.
• Some schools are using the extension of Fundations, called Just Words, to address needs in Grades 4 /5.
• Teachers have access to Heggerty Bridge The Gap resources that can be used for quick(5 minute) daily phonological awareness interventions in the classroom.
• Some schools utilize success coaches to work on foundational skills based on iReady data.

Every school may chose how they will address the learning needs of these identified students.