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Learning Objectives
Reading
Read at least 25 books or book equivalents each year. The list should include both fiction and non-fiction, traditional and contemporary literature, as well as magazines, newspapers, textbooks, and electronic resources. The list should represent a diverse collection of material from at least three different literary forms and from at least five different writers.
As part of the 25 books, student reads at least 4 books by a single writer, or four books in one genre, and produces evidence of reading that:
- Makes and supports warranted and responsible assertions about the texts
- Supports assertions with elaborated and convincing evidence;
- Draws the texts together to compare and contrast themes, characters, and ideas;
- Makes perceptive and well developed connections;
- Evaluates writing strategies and elements of the author's craft.
Reads and comprehends informational materials to develop understanding and expertise and produces written or oral work that:
- Relates or summarizes information;
- Relates new information to prior knowledge and experience;
- Extends ideas;
- Makes connections to related topics or information.
The student participates in one-to-one conferences with a teacher in which the student :
- Initiates new topics in addition to responding to adult-initiated topics;
- Asks relevant questions;
- Responds to questions with appropriate elaboration;
- Uses language cues to indicate different levels of certainty or hypothesizing
- Confirms understanding by paraphrasing the adult's directions or suggestions
The student participates in group meetings, in which the student:
- Displays appropriate turn-taking behaviors;
- Actively solicits another person's comment or opinion;
- Offers own opinion forcefully without dominating;
- Responds appropriately to comments or questions;
- Volunteers contributions and responds when directly solicited by teacher or discussion leader;
- Gives reasons in support of opinions expressed;
- Clarifies, illustrates, or expands on a response when asked to do so; asks classmates for similar expansions;
- Employs a groups decision-making techniques such as brainstorming or a problem-solving sequence ( e.g. recognize problem, define problem, identify possible solutions, select optimal solution, implement solution, evaluate solution).
Writing
The Writing Process is the process through which a writer shapes language to communicate effectively. Writing often develops through a series of initial plans and multiple drafts and through access to informed feedback and response. Purpose, audience, and context contribute to the form and substance of writing as well as to its style, tone, and stance.
Steps of the Writing Process include:
- Collecting
- Finding a seed idea
- Nurturing a seed idea
- Drafting
- Revising our ideas
- Drafting our revised piece
- Editing
- Publishing and celebrating our writing
The student produces a narrative account ( fictional or autobiographical ) through use of the Writing Process that:
- Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a point of view, and otherwise developing reader interest;
- Establishes a situation, plot, point of view, setting, and conflict ( and for autobiography, the significance of events and of conclusions that can be drawn from the events );
- Creates an organizing structure;
- Includes sensory details and concrete language to develop plot and character;
- Excludes extraneous details and inconsistencies
- Develops complex characters
- Uses a range of appropriate strategies, such as dialogue, tension or suspense, naming, and specific narrative action, e.g. movement, gestures, expressions;
- Provides a sense of closure to the writing.
The student demonstrates an understanding of the rules of the English language in written and oral work, and selects the structures and features of language appropriate to the purpose, audience, and context of the work.
The student demonstrates control of:
- Grammar
- Paragraph structure
- Punctuation
- Sentence constructions
- Spelling
- Usage
The student analyzes and subsequently revises work to clarify or make it more effective in communication the intended message or thought. The student’s revisions should be made in the light of the purposes, audiences, and contexts that apply to the work.
Strategies for revision include:
- Adding or deleting details
- Adding or deleting explanations]
- Clarifying difficult passages
- Rearranging words, sentences, and paragraphs to improve or clarify meaning
- Sharpening the focus
- Reconsidering the organizational structure.
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