Standard 2: Reading and Writing Process

Students will use a variety of recursive reading and writing processes.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will use the editing and revising components of the writing process. 

• Students will use transitions to maintain organization and a logical order.

• Students will use transitions to improve sentence variety in their draft.

• Students will be consistent with point of view.

• Teachers model editing strategies that involve making changes to words, phrases, and a careful review using CUPS (capitalization, usage, punctuation, and spelling).

• Teachers provide editing resources (e.g. proofreading checklist, proofreading marks checklist, etc.).

• Teachers provide guidelines for appropriate editing and revising.

• Teachers provide multiple opportunities for students to edit and revise their drafts.

• Teachers provide students with sets of transitions and guide the students on how the transitions create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas in their writing.
• Teachers monitor students’ writing to make sure they are staying on topic and maintaining organization and a logical order.  
• Teachers explain that effective transitions help highlight the connection with sentence variety in their draft.
• Teacher allow time for students to learn how to vary the types of sentences by using different transitions within their draft.
• Teachers model revision strategies to make adjustments to the information presented (e.g. adding or clarifying supporting details or deleting information), as well as making sure there is a consistent point of view in the draft.students stay with a consistent with point of view and the students use transitions to maintain organization and a logical order.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

WritingFix (website)

wikihow.com:revise a piece of writing(website)

readwritethink.org: editing checklist(website)

readingrockets.org: revision checklist using 6 Traits (pdf)

• Revising and editing are different.

• Revising is to change, rearrange, and elaborate on ideas and content.

• Editing is to change formatting and mechanical issues such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

• Example with organization

• Editing: indenting paragraphs, adding or deleting appropriate punctuation

• Revision: moving paragraphs; rewording or ordering sentences within a paragraph to change idea structure

• Example with transitions

• Editing: punctuation, sentence structure correction

• Revision: creating or modifying a transitional phrase

• A comprehensive list of transitions can be found at the University of Wisconsin’s Writing Center as well as ideas for when and how to implement a transition.

• OWL Purdue also provides a comprehensive list of types of transitions and examples of what good and bad transitions look like.

• Example with coherence, cohesion, and flow

• Editing: changing words to stay aligned with audience and purpose to maintain tone

• Revision: reordering/restructuring paragraphs or sentences to maintain tone as aligned with the audience and purpose; elaborating upon, deleting, or adding only evidence/examples/information that corresponds with the overall thesis or purpose

• The University of Massachusetts provides examples of how to maintain flow and cohesion.

• Example with sentence variety

• Editing: punctuation, sentence structure correction

• Revision: adding words/phrases/clauses, combining sentences

• Example with consistent tone and point of view

• Editing: changing accidental second person pronouns to third person pronouns, so the entire essay is consistently in the third person

• Revision: modifying content to ensure tone remains consistent throughout the piece

• Transitions between ideas, paragraphs, and evidence are necessary for an essay’s cohesion and provide guidance for the reader.

• A comprehensive list of transitions can be found at the University of Wisconsin’s Writing Center.

• Students should be using more sophisticated words than so, next, first, etc. These can be used but should be done so sparingly. Students should be pushing for more specific words like meanwhile, as soon as, suddenly, etc.

• Sentence variety makes writing more enjoyable for the reader.

• It can also show relationships between ideas and paragraphs.

• Since writing is recursive, students should be given time away from their drafts to then come back to them with fresh eyes.

• UNC offers guidelines for how to improve an essay by revision practices.

• Students should look to revise and edit organization, sequence, transitions, sentence variety, and coherence.

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.