See Writing Curriculum – This unit will repeat with each piece of writing in the curriculum.

Writing Process

WR-E-4.7.0

Focusing

·       Connecting to content knowledge

·       Connecting with prior learning and experience

·       Initiating an authentic reason to write

·       Thinking about a subject, an experience, a question, an issue or a problem to determine a meaningful reason to write

Focusing

Prewriting

Purpose

WR-HS-4.8.0

Prewriting

·       Establishing a purpose and central/controlling idea or focus

·       Identifying and analyzing the audience

·       Determining the most appropriate form to meet the needs of purpose and audience

·       Generating ideas (e.g., mapping, webbing, note taking, interviewing, researching and other writing-to-learn activities)

·       Organizing ideas – examining other models of good writing and appropriate text structures to match purpose and organize information

Prewriting

Purpose

Central/controlling

     idea

Focus

Audience

Form

WR-HS-4.9.0

Drafting

·       Writing draft(s) for an intended audience

·       Developing topic, elaborating, exploring sentence variety and language use

·       Organizing writing

Drafting

Audience

Topic

Elaborate

Sentence Variety

Organize

WR-HS-4.10.0

Revising

(Content/

Ideas)

·       Reflecting to determine where to add, delete, rearrange, define/redefine or elaborate content

·       Conferencing with teacher or peer(s) to help determine where to add, delete, rearrange, define/redefine or elaborate content

·       Checking for accuracy of content

·       Considering voice, tone, style, intended audience, coherence, transitions, pacing

·       Comparing with rubric criteria and anchor papers/models

·       Considering effectiveness of language usage and sentences to communicate ideas

Reflect

Add

Delete

Rearrange

Define

Redefine

Elaborate

Content

Conference

Accuracy

Voice

Tone

Style

Audience

Coherence

Transitions

Pacing

Rubric

Revising Skills

WR-HS-4.10.0

Idea Development

·       Students will narrow topic for selected writing.

·       Students will compose a topic sentence of a paragraph that is purposefully placed to enhance reader awareness.

·       Students will select appropriate supporting details relevant to a specific writing category (e.g., dialogue, predictions, findings from research, needed definitions, causes and effects, comparisons, contrasts, reference to concepts).

·       Students will delete extraneous/irrelevant materials.

Organization

·       Students will correct sentences that are out of chronological/sequential order or insert new sentences in the correct chronological/sequential position.

·       Students will compose effective and subtle transitions.

·       Students will develop effective introductions and closures for writing.

·       Students will apply appropriate usage of parallelism (e.g., word forms, lists, phrases, clauses, sentences, organization, idea development).

Word Choice

·       Students will eliminate redundant words and phrases.

·       Students will apply the most specific word for use in a sentence.

Narrow

Topic

Topic Sentence

Supporting Details

Dialogue

Predictions

Research findings

Extraneous

Irrelevant

Chronological order

Sequential order

Transition

Parallelism

• Word forms
• Lists
• Phrases
• Clauses
• Sentences
• Organization
• Idea development

Redundant

Specific

WR-HS-4.11.0

Editing

(Conventions and Mechanics)

·       Checking for correctness with self, teacher or peer(s) 

o       Language usage

o       Sentence structure

o       Spelling

o       Capitalization

o       Punctuation

o       Documentation of sources

·       Using resources to support editing (e.g., spell check, dictionaries, thesauri, handbooks)

Correctness

Resources

Documentation

Thesaurus

1^st Six Weeks

Language Usage

Editing Skills

WR-HS-4.11.0

Language Usage

·       Students will apply knowledge of subject/verb agreement with both singular and plural subjects.

·       Students will apply knowledge of present, past and future tenses.

·       Students will apply knowledge of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs.

·       Students will apply knowledge of special problems in usage, (e.g., a/an, to/two/ too, their/ there/ they’re), pronoun references and double negatives.

·       Students will apply knowledge of idiomatic expressions.

Subject/Verb Agreement

Singular subject

Plural subject

Present tense

Past tense

Future tense

Comparative

     adjective and

     adverb

Superlative

     adjective and

     adverb

Usage

Pronoun references

Double negative

Idiomatic

     expression

2^nd Six Weeks

Sentence Structure

Sentence Structure

·       Students will correct run-on and awkward sentences.

·       Students will correct sentence fragments.

·       Students will combine short, choppy sentences effectively.

·       Students will combine simple sentences by using subordination and coordination.

·       Students will correct sentences with misplaced and/or dangling modifiers.

Run-on sentence

Sentence fragment

Simple sentence

Subordination

Coordination

Misplaced modifier

Dangling modifier

Weekly

Spelling

Spelling

·       Students will apply knowledge of spelling patterns, generalizations and rules to commonly used words.

·       Students will apply knowledge of spelling patterns, generalizations and rules to plural forms of words.

·       Students will apply knowledge of spelling patterns, generalizations and rules to contractions.

·       Students will apply knowledge of spelling patterns, generalizations and rules to change verb endings.

Plural

Contraction

Verb ending

3rd Six Weeks

Capitalization

Capitalization

·       Students will capitalize proper nouns (e.g., names, days, months).

·       Students will capitalize the beginning of sentences.

·       Students will capitalize the pronoun “I”.

·       Students will capitalize proper adjectives.

·       Students will capitalize first word in a quote when appropriate.

·       Students will capitalize the first word and every succeeding main word in a title.

Proper noun

Pronoun

Proper adjective

Title

4th Six Weeks

Punctuation

Punctuation

·       Students will correctly punctuate declarative, exclamatory, interrogative and imperative sentences.

·       Students will use commas in a series, a date, a compound sentence, the greeting and closing of a letter.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for commas in appositives, direct address and introductory phrases and clauses.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for apostrophes in possessives and letters and numbers of omission.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for periods in abbreviations and acronyms.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for semi-colons in items in a series and in correcting combined sentences.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for colons in introducing a list and in a business letter greeting.

·       Students will correctly apply the rules of punctuation for quotation marks in dialogue, titles and direct/indirect quotes.

Sentence Types

• Declarative
• Exclamatory
• Interrogative
• Imperative

Commas

Apostrophes

Periods

Abbreviation

Acronym

Semi-colon

Colon

Quotation Marks

Dialogue

Direct/Indirect

     quote

5^th Six Weeks

Documentation

Documentation

·       Students will document use of sources with a format acceptable to the discipline (e.g., MLA, APA).

Document

Source

Format

See units.

Personal Essay, Short Story or Play, Poetry, Transactive Writing, and Reflective Writing

WR-HS-4.12.0

Publishing

·       Sharing final piece with intended audience

See units.

Personal Essay, Short Story or Play, Poetry, Transactive Writing, and Reflective Writing

WR-HS-4.13.0

Reflecting

Reflecting upon

·         Progress, growth and goals as a writer

·         Literacy skills

·         Who or what has influenced progress and growth

·         Approaches used when composing (e.g., free-writing, mental composing, researching, drawing, webbing, outlining)