Standard 8: Independent Reading and Writing

Students will read and write for a variety of purposes including, but not limited to, academic and personal.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will determine a purpose and audience for a writing task

• Students will determine the text structure needed to communicate to a specific audience and purpose. 

• Students will develop a topic to reflect the writing task, audience, and purpose.

• Students will use the writing process independently to complete a writing task over an extended period of time.

• Students will reflect on and evaluate writing.

• Students will complete a writing task. 

• Teachers models:
• selecting the purpose and audience for a writing task
• selecting a text structure (description, problem/solution, cause/effect, compare/contrast, sequence)
• using the writing process
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to write independently over various lengths of time.
• Teachers provide feedback and allow students to reflect on their own writing in order to revise and edit.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

Read Write Think RAFT Writing (webpage)

WritingFix RAFT Strategy  (webpage)

Read Write Think Implementing Writing Process (webpage)

WritingFix Writing Process Activities (webpage)

Quick Write Graphic Organizer (document)

• Audience refer to the reader for whom the particular piece of writing is intended.

• A classroom can encompass students from all the stages of writing development.

• Students should be writing daily. It can be a daily journal entry, writing center, or formal writing assignment.

• Students should not be expected to complete the entire writing process for every piece of writing.

• A student should be able to break down a prompt to determine mode, audience, and purpose.

• Students may think when they reach the bottom of the page or have answered all the points of a prompt, they are finished. They may not understand that writing is a process, and changes happen over different time frames.