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State Essential Skills for 8th grade in Writing, click here:

 

 

Parents and Students:  If you want to see all of the six traits and their requirements, please click on one of the words below:

Ideas and Content        Organization        Voice

Sentence Fluency       Word Choice        Convention

bulletThe Writing Process
bulletWhy  do we do multiple drafts?
bulletMultiple drafts do not mean becoming a human Xerox machine!
bulletIt is a way to improve your writings.
bulletBy concentrating on different traits, and checking with your peers, your ideas/content and word choice become stronger.  Peer edits are a way to make sure that your audience understands your writing.  
bulletDo not select the same person to edit your paper more than once.
bulletRemember, editing is hard work.  It is necessary and all writers ( even Stephen King) edit!
bulletChoose a peer who is a strong writer.  If you keep picking weak writers, your errors may slip by them.
bulletCan a parent do an edit?
bulletAbsolutely! Just wait until you are done with your peer edits.  (Most parents will catch all the convention errors.)
bulletEven other teachers can do an edit. Remember, just wait until you are done with your peer edits.  
bulletFinal Drafts
bulletHow should my final drafts look for your class?
bulletYou should only write on one side of the paper.
bulletCursive and in blue or black ink if you are doing your final draft by hand.
bulletSkip every other line.  This not only gives me room to add comments, but it appears to build organizational skills.
bulletIf you are using a word processing program, your font should be an academic font, size no larger than 14, ink should be black, and your lines should be double spaced.
bulletPackets
bulletWhat order should I put my drafts in?
bulletRemember, you are building a record of all of your improvements.  
bulletPut your drafts from 1st draft to final draft, with your 1st draft being on the bottom of the pile.  Your final draft should be on top.
bulletBanned Words
bulletWhat are they?   Click here for list
bulletYou will be given a list of words that you may not use in any of your writings for my class.
bulletThese words are overused and I want you to become familiar with using a thesaurus.
bulletOne of your peer edits can be looking for and circling banned words.
bulletEssays and Reports
bulletHow often will we write?
bulletIn order to help you prepare for the AIMS and the District's Quarterly writing, you will write short essays every week.
bulletSome of your weekly essays will be explanation of quotes you select on Monday - and your final draft will be due on Friday when you enter the room.
bulletThese short essays do not need to be peer edited.  I suggest that you do have one other person read yours before Friday's due date.
bulletOther weekly essays will mirror the time frame of the AIMS test.  This means that you will be given the topic on Friday and you will have the whole class period to write a short essay.  These types of essays will be due at the end of the class period on Friday.
bulletReports will require peer editing.  Some will need two peer edits, one teacher edit, and a final edit.  Time will be given in class to work on these.  However, it is important that you also use your evenings at home working on these.
bulletWhenever these are due, if you are not done with them, please turn in what you have.  You will not get a high grade if you are missing drafts, but a "D" is much, much better than a "0."
bulletUse of disks
bulletYou may bring your disk to Townsend to print out your final draft.  It must be a MICROSOFT WORD document and you will need to bring it in prior to the due date.  Hard copies are what I grade; I don't grade disks.

 

 

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