EDCON Products
With regard to teaching the essay, teachers don’t need to lesson prep, provide direct instruction, or spend excessive time grading essays. This amazing program provides all the lessons online, PreK-8th grade, presented in a systematic, succinct, and engaging way for students, giving them step-by-step instructions and modeling to write essays in the genres of Narrative, Informative, Opinion/Argument, and Literary Analysis. The grading program streamlines this process for teachers, saving them a lot of time, while providing teachers with aggregated score charts of class performance. EDCON gives teachers their beyond-the-bell time back and gives them classroom time to target individual or small group instruction — happy teachers and happy students.
Comprehensive Writing Curriculum
One teacher license allows a teacher to send their class (40 students) a genre study (group of lessons) that provides students with incremental, engaging lessons to write an essay in the assigned genre: Narrative, Informative, Opinion/Argument, and Literary Analysis. EDCON’s research-based program follows State writing standards, the Six Traits of Writing, the Writing Process (Plan, Research, Outline, Draft, Revise, Edit), and systematic instruction (objective, direct instruction, modeling, practice, partner share, self-assessment with the rubric).
Professional Development For Writing Instruction
Printed Manual: Letter And Sentence Formation
This easy-to-follow manual guides students in correct letter formation and writing simple sentences as they practice penmanship. The manual covers all upper and lower case letters, the most common digraphs, and the non-phonetic Dolch High-Frequency Words K-2nd grade.
EDCON
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the foundations of EDCON's writing program?
EDCON’s research-based program follows State writing standards, the Six Traits of Writing, the Writing Process (Plan, Research, Outline, Draft, Revise, Edit), and systematic instruction (objective, direct instruction, modeling, practice, partner share, self-assessment with the rubric).
How many lessons are in a genre study? How long do the lessons take?
The number of lessons per genre study varies per grade level, for example, there are about six lessons for TK and 17 lessons for 8th grade. Similarly, the duration per lesson varies, ranging from 5-20 minutes, which can also vary if students adjust the playback speed. Because students are required to pause the video to complete specified tasks, a single lesson takes 20-60 minutes to complete. Ideally, students progress through each genre study 1-3 times with different topics in a school year.
Since EDCON genre studies are meant to be completed in consecutive days, teachers will need to devote sections of the school year to writing, ideally half of the ELA time. For grades PreK-1, EDCON can be implemented easily with the ELA program daily within a one-hour block (30 minutes each). For grades 2-8, EDCON lessons need 45-60 minutes, which means teachers will need to devote the entire one-hour block to writing–Ideally, this would be done half the school year. If the ELA block is closer to two hours daily, then EDCON can be implemented daily throughout the year.
How can EDCON be implemented with an ELA (English Language Arts) program?
Compatible with any ELA curriculum, EDCON replaces/supplements the “Essay Writing” section. Typically, ELA programs lack the instruction and resources teachers and students need to complete well-written essays–This is where EDCON meets these needs. Since EDCON genre studies are meant to be completed in consecutive days, teachers will need to devote sections of the school year to writing, ideally half of the ELA time. For grades PreK-1, EDCON can be implemented easily with the ELA program daily within a one-hour block (30 minutes each). For grades 2-8, EDCON lessons need 45-60 minutes, which means teachers will need to devote the entire one-hour block to writing–Ideally, this would be done half the school year. If the ELA block is closer to two hours daily, then EDCON can be implemented daily throughout the year.
How does EDCON work?
1. Schools/Districts/Teachers sign up.
2. A registration link is emailed to the administrator, which needs to be forwarded to the writing teachers.
3. Teachers create a class (only a few clicks) and an assignment (again, just a few clicks), then share the assignment link to students. Alternatively, teachers can simply show the video lessons whole-group.
4. Teachers provide students with the digital/hardcopy handouts (rubric, revision, and editing checklists).
5. After completing the series of lessons within a genre study, students in all grades, ideally grades 2-8, can upload their paper and highlight specific portions of their paper that meet the rubric components. This further builds the concepts and analytical skills, while helping teachers with the grading process.
6. While providing a nurturing, respectful classroom environment, teachers can display and discuss student work whole-class, providing rich classroom discussions. Research shows that increased learning is achieved within the context of peer examples.
7. Teachers administer the assessment.
How can the program be adapted to meet the needs of my students?
1. The videos can be viewed whole-class, individually, or in small groups.
2. The playback speed can be adjusted.
3. The teacher can choose the essay topic(s).
4. The teacher assigns the due dates and can modify them at any time.
5. For the “Share It” portion of the lesson, teachers can assign partners or have a few students share with the whole class.
6. Teachers can assign the genre studies in any order and can repeat the studies as many times as desired.
7. When creating the assignment, teachers can (1) Turn on/off the videos; (2) Turn on/off the quizzes, and (3) Use either the right/wrong or 1-4 rubric scoring.
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Achieving Writing Success with EDCON
At EDCON, we're all about building strong bonds between teachers, students, and success. With our wealth of expertise and innovative technology, we empower educators and learners to achieve writing proficiency, PreK-8th grade.