Writing Standard #1: Habits and Processes E4a (language rules) E4b (revising)

Essential teaching should include teacher instruction and modeling of the writing process including the traits of idea development, organization, voice, word choices, sentence fluency, and conventions. Students will engage in and develop their writing, utilizing the writing process and attending to conventions, grammar, and usage of the English language.

By the end of Grade 9, 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 E2a/c: The student process a report

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to produce a narrative account that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context and developing reader interest;
• Establishes a situation;
• Creates a clear organizing structure;
• Includes vivid sensory details;
• Excludes extraneous information;
• Develops complex characters and specific narrative action;
• Provides closure

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected produce a report that:

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

Writing Standard E2b: Responding to Literature

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to write a response to literature that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context and developing reader interest;
• Makes observations that are interpretive or reflective;
• Supports observations through references to text and references to personal knowledge;
• Demonstrates understanding of the literary work through advancing an overall interpretation;
• Anticipates and adequately answers readers’ questions;
• Recognizes possible ambiguities and complexities;
• Provides closure.

Writing Standard E2d: A Narrative Procedure – Functional Writing

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to produce a narrative procedure that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context and developing reader interest;
• Provides a guide to action for a procedure in order to anticipate a reader’s needs and creates expectations through predictable structures (i.e. headings);
• Makes use of appropriate writing strategies;
• Includes relevant information;
• Excludes extraneous information;
• Identifies problems, mistakes, and misunderstandings that might arise for the reader;

Provides a sense of closure.

Writing Standard E2e: Persuasive Writing

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to produce a persuasive essay that:

• Engages the reader through the use of an appropriate hook that establishes a context and creates a persona, such as asking a question, relaying a fact or statistic, making a strong statement or expressing an opinion, creating a scenario…
• Develops a controlling idea in the introductory paragraph that makes a clear and knowledgeable judgment
• Creates and organizes a structure that is appropriate to the needs, values, and interests of a specified audience,
• Arranges details, reasons, examples, and anecdotes effectively and persuasively;
• Includes appropriate information and arguments; and excludes irrelevant information and arguments;
• Anticipates and addresses reader concerns and counter-arguments;
• Supports arguments with detailed evidence, accurately citing sources of information and ideas as appropriate;
• Provides a sense of closure to the writing

Writing Standard E2f: Reflective Writing

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to produce a reflective essay that:

• Engages the reader by establishing a context and developing reader interest;
• States a condition or situation of significance;
• Develops a personal observation or experience as the basis for reflection;
• Creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose and audience

Writing Standard E7b: Functional Writing

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

By the end of Grade 9, 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 definitions and examples;
• Identifies readers’ problems, mistakes, and misunderstandings;
• Uses a variety of formatting techniques;

Employs word choices that are appropriate for intended audience.

Writing Standard #3:

Usage and Conventions

Writing Processes (E4: Conventions, Grammar, and Usage of the English Language

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to:

• Use varied sentence openers;
• Use literary language when appropriate;
• Mimic sentence structure from various genres.;
• Appropriately use varied sentence forms, including compound and complex sentences;
• Use transitional words and phrases;

Use varying sentence patterns to create a sense of individual style.

Vocabulary and Word Choice

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to:

• Develop a writing vocabulary which is mature, precise,

and academically appropriate;

• Develop a writing vocabulary which is appropriate to specific genres (colloquial, formal, technical, etc.);
• Incorporate newly learned words;
• Use figurative and descriptive language;
• Use standard idioms appropriately;
• Use a thesaurus to enhance the precision of their writing.

Spelling

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected to:

• Correctly spell most grade-level high frequency words (with an accuracy rate ≥90%);
• Use correct spelling rules (forming plurals, adding suffixes, ie/ei 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)

By the end of Grade 9, students will be expected 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);
• 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 the 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).