K-8 CraftPlus®
Flexible...Complete...Effective

Core writing curriculum with a difference! The spiraling and differentiated writing curriculum organizes writing skills grade by grade — embedding differentiation. The focus is on explicitly teaching general descriptive and genre-specific Target Skills® in a systematic and scaffolded way that uses student, teacher, and literature models. Included are writing process, writing craft, and grammar skills with an emphasis on critical informational genres.

Teachers get the daily support they need within a unified school- and district-wide approach.

CraftPlus creates independent writers who love to write and teachers who understand how to teach writing in the 30- to 45-minute writing workshop or as an authentic comprehension and assessment strategy for content-area studies.

CraftPlus is flexible and modular. Depending on what you need, CraftPlus can be:

• A writing remedy for a K-8 grade level of concern
• The daily writing guide for one or more grade-level teachers
• A differentiated school-wide curriculum that focuses on assessed informational genres
• A foundation for an intensive, on-site, writing staff PD program
• A district-unifying approach to writing instruction

Purchase what you need! Just $199 for each grade-level Teacher Pack.

Program components

• K-8 Teacher Packs
• 16-DVD Reference Set with viewing guide
• Staff Development Package
• Grade-level Mentor Text Bundles

Additional Maupin House titles that support CraftPlus

Customized PD

• School-based CraftPlus PD support
• District CraftPlus support
• Writing workshop professional development topics

Quick CraftPlus overview

• CraftPlus approach
• Target Skills
• What CraftPlus looks like in the classroom
• About the DVDs
• CraftPlus genre map

Program Components

K-8 Teacher Packs - $199 each

This core instructional tool includes a grade-level Daily Writing Lessons with 180 days of desk-level support and assessments; the Curriculum Guide with Target Skills arranged in four differentiated levels; planning, instruction, and assessment tools; and two integrated professional resources.

Click here to order online, or download our CraftPlus order form.

K-2 Teacher Packs include
Teaching the Youngest Writers
and Building a Writing Community.

Grade 3-5 Teacher Packs include
Building a Writing Community
and Listen To This.

Grade 6-8 Teacher Packs include
Crafting Comparison Papers,
Crafting Expository Papers,
Crafting Opinion and Persuasive Papers,
and Listen To This.

>> Click here to try out the first month of Daily Writing Lessons for your grade level!

>> Look inside the Curriculum Guides!

DVD Reference Set - $299

An ever-ready school-wide reference! Teachers can check out and study CraftPlus topics and classroom demonstrations on sixteen 45-minute DVDs covering basic CraftPlus topics at home or use them as a foundation for at-school study group learning. CraftPlus developer Marcia S. Freeman leads the viewer through more than twelve hours of professional writing information, lessons, and writing-workshop classroom-management techniques created in a real classroom setting. Each DVD is divided into three or four segments. The set includes five classroom demonstration DVDs. DVDs may also be purchased separately.

Watch DVD clips:
"Supporting Details"
"Beginning and Ending Techniques"
"Revision" (classroom demonstration)

Staff Development Package - $199

This optional component helps facilitators and lead teachers implement and manage CraftPlus teacher study groups as quality at-work PD. Includes a CD with the Facilitator's Guide, reproducibles, and student writing samples in all assessed genres, plus a reference copy of each of the purchased grade-level Curriculum Guides and professional resources. The Staff Development Package helps a school implement quality, job-embedded professional development using the research-proven study group approach.

Grade-level Mentor Text Bundles

Purchase a collection of the literature models used in any grade-level Daily Writing Lessons for one low price! Call 800-524-0634 to order. Click on each grade below for the list of models.

Kindergarten Mentor Text Bundle: $299    
Grade 1 Mentor Text Bundle: $229
Grade 2 Mentor Text Bundle: $149
Grade 3 Mentor Text Bundle: $199
Grade 4 Mentor Text Bundle: $199
Grade 5 Mentor Text Bundle: $99
Grade 6 Mentor Text Bundle: $49
Grade 7 Mentor Text Bundle: $99
Grade 8 Mentor Text Bundle: $59

Additional Maupin House titles that support CraftPlus

Receive 20% off any of these resources with your CraftPlus Teacher Pack purchase!

• Building a Writing Community
• Crafting Comparison Papers
• Crafting Expository Papers
• Crafting Opinion and Persuasive Papers
• Growing Up Writing
• Listen to This
• Models for Teaching Writing-Craft Target Skills
• Purposeful Writing Assessment: Using Multiple-Choice Practice to Inform Writing Instruction
• Razzle Dazzle Writing
• Teaching Early Writing and Reading Together
• Teaching the Youngest Writers
• Teach Spelling So It Sticks!

Customized PD

Maupin House now offers schools and districts tailored, quality, on-site training to support CraftPlus and to help schools understand and implement models-based and Target Skills-based writing workshop.

School-based CraftPlus Support
Choose from half-day training through week-long professional institutes for teachers, literacy coaches, and administration, or multiple-visit contracts that can span several years. Maupin House trainers conduct a detailed needs assessment that matches the learning objectives and learning settings with your writing instructional needs.

CraftPlus Writing Kick-off Training
After you purchase CraftPlus, get everyone on the same writing page fast! FREE one-day training with a district sale. Available for K-8. Maupin House works with school leaders to design training that can include lectures, classroom demonstration lessons, evaluations, writing workshop techniques, small group, train the trainer, or other teaching modalities. All expenses included, up to 35 teachers at a time.
For non-district sales: $1900 full day/$1000 half day. Additional teachers, up to 50, are $49 each for a full day; $25 for a half-day.

District CraftPlus Support
One full day of implementation training for CraftPlus is included as part of a district sale, even if the district sale occurs over a year’s time, if at least five schools purchase the program at a time and train on a single date at one location. Additional, full-day, district-sponsored PD for trainers and teachers.
$1900, all expenses included.

Long-term district support using the CraftPlus approach can be developed and extended for high-school implementation.  
Pricing developed by project.

CraftPlus Advanced Writing Training
Special topics, new techniques, and lessons for schools and districts wishing to explore CraftPlus at a deeper level. Available for K-10.
Call for pricing.

Writing Workshop Professional Development
Prices for workshops below are $1900 per day, all trainer expenses included, for up to 35 participants. Additional teachers are $49 each, up to 50 total per trainer. Long-term district support for writing workshop and customized training packages combined with professional  books can also be developed. Pricing developed by project.  

How to Teach Writing with Target Skills
Training to understand and use writing craft in writing workshop, using the Target Skills approach. Maupin House titles are used as reference for the course. Available for K-10.

Writing Workshop 101: Orientation to Writing Workshop using Target Skills
For schools and districts just implementing writing workshop, an intensive introduction to the principles of writing workshop, Target Skills, and craft-based writing instruction. Available for K-10.

Writing for Reading
To help K-10 teachers exploit the potential of using writing as an authentic comprehension and assessment strategy for content-area studies.

Writing Workshop Summer Intensives
Tailored, multi-day training in Target Skills and other CraftPlus techniques, designed to meet school and district requirements. Available for K-10.

Quick CraftPlus Overview

CraftPlus Approach
CraftPlus teachers explicitly teach and allow children to practice clearly modeled Target Skills that divide skills into organizational, composing, and conventions, taught within the writing workshop that uses the writing process. These Target Skills represent the same techniques that all good writers use. CraftPlus systematically teaches these skills and promotes lots of student practice to master and internalize them.

Besides providing a spiraling K-8 writing curriculum, CraftPlus includes many instructional techniques for effective writing workshop. These include several types of modeling, writers’ and teacher’s notebooks, effective student response, and ways to maximize all stages of the writing process. CraftPlus

• Creates informed teachers of writing who understand how to teach writing and assess it objectively, just as they teach and assess any other subject.
• Focuses on informational writing genres because, as developer Marcia S. Freeman says, “Informational writing comprises 99 percent of what 99 percent of us will do during our lifetimes.”
• Emphasizes an 80-20 split between practice of skills and assessment. It focuses on formative assessments for the practice and periodic summative assessments after a unit is completed.

Target Skills
The term Target Skills refers to single organizing, composing, and conventions writing skills taught explicitly and systematically. The Target Skills are the same techniques that all writers use – like using strong verbs, inserting a sense of voice by speaking directly to the reader, or using statistics to bolster a persuasive argument.  

What /media/upload/image/CraftPlus Looks Like in the Classroom
Teachers get started with Daily Writing Lessons, which follows the Target Skills curriculum found in the Curriculum Guide. These writing workshop lessons start with a four- to six-week unit of descriptive organizational and composing writing skills that go across all genres. Conventions are included, too. /media/upload/image/CraftPlus show you how to teach a mix of organizational, composing, and conventions skills together for student practice. Kindergarten teachers focus on building strong early alphabetic principles and foundational descriptive-writing skills.

Using the Daily Writing Lessons, teachers in all grades begin with descriptive Target Skills unit because these skills are found in all genres. This initial unit provides a good opportunity to review skills for returning students and to assess writing skills for students who are new to the approach. After the end of the first unit, teachers in grades 1-8 are free to choose which unit of genre lessons to teach, based on their curricular needs.

A short formative assessment happens at the end of each week. At the end of each unit, teachers in grades 1-8 take students through all the writing process stages for a formal writing piece. They assess  how well students understand and apply what has been taught during the unit. This assessment is graded and used as an instructional guide to re-teach skills in whole- or small-group lessons as needed, using information and tools in their grade-level Curriculum Guide, or to move on to the next, genre-specific unit of their choice.  

Teachers are free to develop their own lessons instead of strictly following the Daily Writing Lessons. They get help with that by consulting the genre tiers in the Curriculum Guide, which list the various Target Skills for that genre block. Additional lessons and lesson ideas cited in the Daily Writing Lessons and Curriculum Guide are found in the professional books included with the program.

Assessment tools are available in the Daily Writing Lessons. Additional planning, instructional, and assessment tools appear in the grade-level Curriculum Guide.

The Daily Writing Lessons represent only a small number of the possible Target Skills that can be taught. So, at the end of the first year, when teachers are comfortable with /media/upload/image/CraftPlus, teachers can rely more heavily on the differentiated genre Target Skills in the Curriculum Guide to develop lessons. Of course, Daily Writing Lessons can be re-taught.

During the first year, teachers begin creating Teacher’s Writing Notebooks which contain lessons, reference materials, and model sources and examples. Teachers also help students create and manage Writer’s Notebooks that organize practice writing and hold handouts, revisions, and finished pieces.

About the DVDs
The optional DVD set can be used as a school-wide reference for staff as well as to orient new teachers to CraftPlus. They are also used as the basis for setting up grade-level study groups for onsite PD. Each 45-minute DVD is divided into three or four segments for easy viewing. The classroom demonstration DVDs are linked to topics discussed in the lecture DVDs.

DVD Topics

1. A Writing Curriculum and How to Deliver the Skills
2. How to Teach a Writing-Craft Target Skill
3. Organizing Writing and Two Kinds of Narrative
4. Organizing Expository Writing
5. Supporting Details
6. Persuasive Writing
7. Beginning and Ending Techniques
8. A Sampling of Composing Skills
9. Revision
10. Editing
11. Emergent Writers: Stages and Modeling
12. Editing by Ear (Classroom Demonstration)
13. Revision (Classroom Demonstration)
14. Ending Techniques (Classroom Demonstration)
15. Elaboration (Classroom Demonstration)
16. Supporting Details (Classroom Demonstration)

CraftPlus Genre Map

Meet Marcia Freeman

Marcia S. Freeman is an author and an internationally recognized authority on writing craft. She has written more than fifty photo-illustrated science and geography guided reading books for Rourke Classroom Resources, Newbridge Educational, Rand McNally, and Red Road Publishing, as well as six professional titles for Maupin House.

In 2001, Maupin House released CraftPlus, the culmination of Marcia’s comprehensive writing-craft instructional approach. The nation’s first and only K-8 writing curriculum and staff development resource focuses on teaching students the explicit Target Skills and techniques that all writers use. It focuses on expository, informational genres to directly support core content-area reading programs. CraftPlus® includes classroom management techniques for writing workshop instruction and study guides for study-group learning. Since 2001, the CraftPlus program has grown to include grade-level Daily Writing Lessons for K-8 teachers.

» Click here to read Marcia S. Freeman's thoughts on how to assess student writing.