Writing Standard #1: Habits and Processes

In Grade 11, students’ writing continues to develop through a series of initial plans, multiple drafts, and informed teacher and student feedback and response. Students are expected to understand that purpose, audience, and context contribute to the form and substance of writing and apply this understanding consistently in their writing.

Writing Process (E4a, E4b)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to participate in regular writing experiences which employ the writing process, including:

•prewriting activities such as:

—journal writing;

—brainstorming;

—use of graphic organizers (webbing, spoke-and-wheel, Venn diagrams);

—initial outlining;

—group meetings;

•organizational strategies such as:

—clustering;

—formal outlining;

—rearrangement;

•editing, revising, and reflecting through:

—clarifying word choice and grammar;

—teacher feedback;

—peer review;

—self-assessment;

•proofreading:

—understanding proofreading symbols, and abbreviations;

—using dictionaries, grammar guides, and other reference sources;

—using spell-check programs.

Writing Standard #2: Compositional Forms (Writing Purposes and Resulting Genres)

In Grade 12, students writer for a variety of purposes and audiences. The emphasis will be on adapting and expanding familiar forms to suit the unique purposes of each writing activity.

Narrative Writing (E2c)

By the end of Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a narrative account that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a point of view and developing reader interest;
• Establishes a compelling situation through the development of conflict, plot, point of view, setting;
• Examines the narrative, thematic, and psychological significance of events and the conclusions that can be drawn from them;
• Creates a sophisticated organizing structure;
• Includes vivid sensory details;
• Excludes extraneous information;
• Develops complex characters and specific narrative action;
• Provides closure.

Informational Writing (E2a)

By the end of Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a report that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and otherwise developing reader interest;
• Develops a controlling idea that conveys a personal and critical perspective on a subject;
• Creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience, and context;

• Includes appropriate facts and details;
• Excludes extraneous and inappropriate information;
• Uses appropriate strategies (i.e. providing facts and details, describing or analyzing the subject; narrating a relevant anecdote, comparing and contrasting, explaining benefits or limitations, demonstrating claims or assertions, and providing a scenario to illustrate);
• Accurately cites sources of information;
• Provides closure.

Reflective Writing (E2f)

By the end of Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a reflective essay that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a point of view, and developing reader interest;
• Analyzes and evaluates a condition or situation of significance;
• Develops a personal observation or experience as the basis for reflection;
• Creates a lucid and original organizing structure appropriate to purpose and audience;
• Uses a variety of writing strategies, such as concrete details, descriptive language, comparing and contrasting, creating a scenario, etc.;

Provides a sense of closure to the writing.

Persuasive Writing (E2e)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a persuasive essay that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and developing reader interest;
• Develops a controlling idea that makes a clear and knowledgeable judgment;
• Creates a sophisticated organizing structure that is appropriate to the needs, values, and interests of a specified audience, and arranges details, reasons, examples, and anecdotes effectively and persuasively;
• Includes appropriate information and arguments;
• Excludes information and arguments that are irrelevant;
• Anticipates and addresses reader concerns and counter-arguments;
• Supports arguments with detailed evidence, accurately citing sources of information and ideas as appropriate;

• Uses a carefully selected range of strategies to elaborate and persuade, such as definitions, descriptions, illustrations, examples from evidence, and anecdotes;

Provides a sense of closure to the writing

Narrative Procedure (E2d)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a narrative procedure that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona and developing reader interest;
• Provides a guide to action for a complex procedure in order to anticipate a reader’s needs; creates expectations through predictable structures (i.e. headings); and provides smooth and logical transitions between steps;
• Makes use of appropriate writing strategies;
• Includes relevant information independently selected by the student;
• Excludes extraneous information on the basis of the student’s independent judgment;
• Anticipates and responds authoritatively to problems, mistakes, and misunderstandings that might arise for the reader;

Provides a sense of closure.

Responding to Literature (E2b)

By the end of Grade 12, students will be expected to write a response to literature that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and developing reader interest;
• Makes judgments that are interpretive, analytic, reflective, or evaluative;
• Supports judgments through accurately cited references to text; accurately cited references to other works, authors, or non-print media; and references to personal knowledge;
• Demonstrates understanding of the literary work through advancing a critical, analytic, evaluative interpretation of the work as a whole;
• Anticipates and authoritatively answers readers’ questions;
• Recognizes and interprets possible ambiguities, nuances, and complexities;

Provides closure.

Public Documents (E6b)

By the end of Grade 12, students will be expected to produce public documents in which the student:

• Exhibits an awareness of the importance of precise word choice and the power of imagery and/or anecdote;
• Utilizes and recognizes the power of logical arguments, arguments based on appealing to reader’s emotions, and arguments dependent upon the writer’s persona;
• Uses arguments that are appropriate in terms of the knowledge, values, and degree of understanding of the intended audience;

Uses a carefully selected range of strategies to appeal to readers.

Functional Writing (E7b):

This standard will be addressed in other content areas (i.e. science, mathematics, and family and consumer science).

In Grade 12, students will be expected to produce a functional document appropriate to audience and purpose, in which the student:

• Reports, organizes, and conveys information and ideas accurately;
• Includes relevant narrative details, such as scenarios, definitions and examples;
• Anticipates and responds authoritatively to readers’ problems, mistakes, and misunderstandings;
• Uses a variety of formatting techniques;
• Establishes a persona that is consistent with the document’s purpose;

Employs word choices that are consistent with the persona and appropriate for intended audience.

Writing Standard 3: Usage and Conventions

In Grade 12, students will continue to develop consistent control and independent application of grade-appropriate conventions, diction, and grammar in their writing.

Style and Syntax (E4a)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to demonstrate consistently and independently the ability to::

• Appropriately use a wide variety of syntactic patterns typical of spoken and standard written English (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative; simple, compound, complex);
• Identify the parts of sentences;
• Construct complex sentences, including:

—subordinate clauses;

—subordinating and coordinating conjunctions;

—parallelism;

• Understand the use of different verb tenses:

—past, present, and future;

—perfect and progressive tenses;

• Demonstrate agreement of subjects and verbs;
• Demonstrate agreement of pronouns and antecedents (including singular indefinite pronouns, e.g. everyone, any);
• Understand the difference between active vs. passive voice;
• Vary sentence openings;
• Use transitional words and phrases effectively;
• Use literary language where appropriate;
• Mimic syntactic patterns from various genres of literature;
• Use varying sentence patterns to create a sense of individual style
• Demonstrate an understanding of the functional grammar of simple, compound, and complex sentences

Use published grammar guidelines for revising and editing their work.

Vocabulary and Word Choice (E4b)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to demonstrate consistently and independently the ability to:

• Develop a writing vocabulary which is varied, mature, precise, and nuanced;
• Develop a writing vocabulary which is appropriate to specific genres (colloquial, formal, technical, etc.);
• Incorporate newly learned words, including derived forms
• Use figurative and descriptive language;
• Use standard idioms appropriately;
• Correctly use grammatically appropriate forms of:

—regular and irregular plurals

—regular and irregular verbs

—verb tenses (present, progressive, past, and past participle forms);

—verbals (participles, infinitives, gerunds);

—positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs

—simple, possessive, and reflexive pronouns and antecedents

—prepositions and prepositional phrases, using object case after prepositions

—coordinating and subordinating conjunctions

Use a thesaurus to enhance the precision of their writing.

Spelling (E4a)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to demonstrate consistently and independently the ability to:

• Correctly spell most grade-level high frequency words (with an accuracy rate ≥90%);
• Use correct spelling rules (forming plurals, adding suffixes, ei/ie rule, etc.);
• Draw on reference sources for deciding how to spell unfamiliar words;

Self-edit and peer-edit to correct spelling.

Punctuation, Capitalization, and Other Conventions (E4a)

In Grade 12, students will be expected to demonstrate consistently and independently the ability to:

• Correctly use end punctuation marks (period, exclamation point, question mark);
• Correctly use commas to separate:

—clauses;

—items in a series;

—appositives;

—introductory phrases;

• Correctly use commas in dates, addresses, etc.;
• Correctly use apostrophes in singular and plural possessive nouns;
• Correctly use apostrophes in contractions;
• Correctly use specialized punctuation marks (quotation marks, semicolons, colons, dashes, parentheses, brackets, ellipses);
• Follow standard usage in combining punctuation marks (e.g., end punctuation before quotations mark, etc.);
• Correctly use hyphenation in compound words and between syllables;
• Capitalize the beginnings of sentences;
• Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives;
• Capitalize relationship terms used as proper nouns;
• Use standard capitalization for titles (first word, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs);
• Use standard punctuation for titles (quotations marks for titles of shorter works, underlining or italics for titles of major or full-length works);
• Use standard abbreviations for personal titles, days of week, months, addresses, etc.;
• Use standard formatting for written work:

—margins;

—headings;

—titles;

—page numbers;

—paragraph indentation;

• Quote source material accurately (using ellipses for omissions and brackets for additions or changes);
• Use indented block format for longer quotations;
• Cite source references within text using standard parenthetical (MLA) format

Cite source material in standard bibliographical (MLA) format.