Editting- Revise VS Cups

Using CUPS or ARMS to edit their own work, students are able to add more detail or remove unnecessary features. Students love this tecnhique, along with color editting.

Color Editting

If you write a story, you always have to edit. You have to check spelling, punctuation, grammar, vocabulary and if your story makes sense. Editing is all these things in a story. Editing is one of the most important parts of making a story. Who wants to read a story with every thing not making sense? If you didn't have editing why have a story? At a newspaper, editing is a important job. If punctuation is wrong a reader may not understand it, and if the grammar is wrong then the reader won't get what you are saying.
One way you can edit your paper is by color editing.
Color editing can be done right on your paper using colored pencils or pens, or you can use an overhead transparency and dry erase markers.

Green: Underline every capital letter in green. Then put a green box around every letter that starts a sentence.

Red: Put a red box around the punctuation mark (".", "!" or the "?") at the end of every sentence.
Check: Do the number of green boxes equal the number of red boxes? If they don't, something is wrong - because every beginning of a sentence has to have an ending!

Orange: Circle the word "and" every time you use it in a story. Did you use it too much? Maybe you don't use "and" too much, but what about the word "then" or "like". You know what words you use a lot - so look for those words by circling them in orange.

Blue: Read your story out loud (not too loud if you're in class!) and put a dot above every word AS YOU SAY IT! This will help you find words that you missed.

Black: Read the story backward and look for words that aren't spelled right.

Finally - reread your corrected story! See if it looks right and makes sense.

 

Writing Goals

Construction with students of both a rubric for them to self assess against, as well as setting writing goals are important to ensure that students and teachers know and set clear expectations for the unit.

Here is a simple design from my persuasive writing goals, in which I created with one of my writing groups as a focus.

 

Writing Pyramids

I found this design for these posters online, however decided to make my own.
Can use as focus, or get children to create their own.

Problem solving strategies

Problem solving involves looking at (often) a worded problem and identifying what the question is actually asking you to solve. There is often alot of words in the problem that may confuse you, so either of these strategies may help you to avoid the confusion

Identifying Author's Purpose

Authors write for several reasons.

Many authors write to entertain people and make them laugh.

Authors also write to persuade or convince their readers to believe in something.

Sometimes authors write to inform or teach you about something.

http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/h/authorpur.cfm

Authors can write: To entertain To persuade To inform

http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/o/authorspurposep.cfm

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Spelling rules help us when we need to change a word. There are always exceptions to this rule.

However, knowing these rules will help you in your writing, as well as your reading when you break down a word.