What in the World is SRSD?

Hello All,

I've been attending a Literacy and Math Common Core Training this week. I have really enjoyed it. The Writing Strategy we are learning about this week is called Self-Regulated Strategy Development. I know the first thing you say is HUH? :)  It is shortened to SRSD. It is well researched and gains are well documented. Tennessee had pretty good writing scores when they were doing (wait for it) decontextualized narrative prompts. Say what? You know those prompts, You wake up in the morning and you are flying on a magic carpet. Where did it come from and where will you go?  Totally out of left field with no context (hence decontextualized). When the prompts moved to being information text based responses writing scores in Tennessee went down. So, the State implemented this Common Core Training this summer on Writing and specifically on the SRSD.

I have actually enjoyed the training. The Coach was great and enthusiastic and "real". You know what I mean, right?

There's a process for it which is important. The Development part of it that are scaffolding them from the very beginning. You start with pre-assessment and then walk them through the mnemonic Pow TIDE by using an exemplar writing. You take apart the exemplar and apply it to the Graphic Organizer.  Now, there are some more out there on the web that you can google to find however, I have created my own "cuties" to share with you.  One thing you do is color code the exemplar. They used red, green, and blue in the training. You will see on my graphic organizer I used yellow, pink, and blue because I plan to use highlighters that will be easily accessible for them. These colors coordinate with the highlighters hence the yellow, pink and blue. You can choose whatever colors you want.

POW stands for Pull Apart the Prompt (What is it asking me to do?) Organize my Notes (use the graphic organizer) Write Some More (develop your essay/writing).

TIDE stands for Topic Sentence, Important Detail (you want 3 ideally) and Ending.  Sounds really simple but it works. The beauty is that it's used K-12. You add more as you get to higher grades for instance 3rd grade adds LL. They stand for Language and Links. Language meaning word choice and Links are using transition words. Now, this is all according to my understanding. Someone else may have a totally different take on all of this.

Eventually, you want your kiddos to create their own graphic organizers. Then when they are on a test that you can't use one they'll be able to create it on their own. It's a good system and I have totally bought into it. If you teach in Tennessee and haven't attended this training yet check it out.  The other half of the training was on math. I'll post about it later! :)

Here's the "cutie". Hope you enjoy. I would love to hear your comments if you'd be so kind as to leave me some!

Here's the preview. I know there is a way to link the preview to open the google document but I can't seem to find the directions to do it right. I know how to link a picture to a web address but can't get this to work right. I wish you could see the whole thing big but this is all I know how to do right now. Maybe someone will see this and have mercy on me and show me how to do it right! Link is below the preview.



POW TIDE Cutie