SIM Virtual Professional Learning: Canvas Course

The Sentence Writing Strategies

Why would I want to teach the SIM Sentence Writing Strategies?

Each Sentence Writing Strategy has shown in research studies to produce statistically significant and socially valid improvements in students’ writing performance.

Fundamentals in the Sentence Writing Strategy (for students in grades 2+) is a set of instructional lessons during which students will learn basic grammar terms as well as how to write and check several types of simple sentences. Instruction in Fundamentals in the Sentence Writing Strategy (FSW) is appropriate for students who need a thorough grounding in basic concepts and terms, such as "subject," "verb," or "infinitive." FSW can be used as a developmental writing curriculum or as a quick set of review lessons to improve students' understanding of these concepts.

Once students have that basic understanding, they may move on to Proficiency in the Sentence Writing Strategy (for students in grades 3+). With these lessons, you can teach students about clauses and the other advanced sentence structure elements. Together, these two Sentence Writing Strategies support students to recognize and write 14 sentence patterns with four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

This course is separated into two self-paced and self-guided courses, housed in the Canvas Learning Management System: one course on the Fundamentals in the Sentence Writing Strategy (FSW) and one course on the Proficiency in the Sentence Writing Strategy (PSW). We estimate that each will take approximately 6-8 hours to complete.

These time estimates include time to:

  • watch the brief videos,
  • complete quick experiential activities in the modules, and
  • read the accompanying materials (modest estimate).

Among many individual factors, the length of time will vary due to reading and working speed, or if you implement the lessons with students between participating in the modules. Another factor for time variance is whether this is your first SIM Learning Strategy.

This course includes access to a virtual SIM Professional Developer on Zoom. These online coaching sessions include additional time of approximately 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on your requested level of support. You also will have access to the Canvas resources for 6 months after registering so that you may review anything you need while implementing this SIM strategy.

We've had great feedback from people who've attended this course with a colleague, so think about attending with someone from your school or district.

Register Anytime and Complete the Course at your own pace. 

Course Price: $275 (*plus guidebooks)

Participants will receive the following materials as part of their registration: Access to the Fundamentals in Sentence Writing Course on Canvas, access to the Fundamentals in Sentence Writing Course on Canvas, access to digital teacher resources, and two one-hour follow-up coaching sessions.

Registration Step One: Fill out the Online Registration Form

Registration Step Two: Course Payment

Registration Step Three: Purchase Guidebooks (if you do not already have them)

Refund Policy: There will be no refunds issued for this course.

An accessible version of the documents on this site will be made available upon request. Please contact the KU CRL Professional Development Research Institute, at simpd@ku.edu to request the document be made available in an accessible format.