Standard 2: Reading and Writing Process

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

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will revise and edit multiple drafts for the following ideas:
• Organization
• Improvements in transitions and coherence
• Sentence variety
• Tone and point of view
• Rhetorical devices

• Teachers demonstrate how to revise and edit drafts.
• Teachers provide students with opportunities to make corrections to multiple drafts.
• Teachers provide students with feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.

• Students will use transitions to improve coherence and meaning.

• Teachers model how to effectively use transitions to maintain organization and a logical sequence of events.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to use transitions.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to receive feedback on the effective use of transitions in writing.

• Students will write multiple drafts to improve their writing.

• Teachers provide students with multiple opportunities to return to the same piece of writing to revise and edit.

• Students will revise drafts to maintain clarity and cohesiveness.

• Teachers model how to revise a draft to maintain clarity and cohesiveness.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to revise drafts to maintain clarity and cohesiveness.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to receive feedback on the clarity and cohesiveness of a revised draft.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

• At this level,  the editing and revision process should involve the intentional use of specific rhetorical devices.

• An extensive list of rhetorical devices can be found here.

• 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

• 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, 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.