Scarsdale

Students will learn to…

• employ a range of writing strategies including brainstorming and free writing, mapping and outlining, conferring with teachers, drafting, and peer editing 
• identify areas in their own writing in need of improvement
• sustain some measure of personal voice in their writing 
  
  

Analytical/Expository Writing

• distinguish between reasons and examples
• write multi-paragraph essays that develop an argument through the use of reasons and examples
• incorporate textual evidence into their essays and explain how this evidence supports their ideas
• assign creative writing based on student reading to establish the value of reading a text closely
• regularly reinforce the distinctions between showing and telling
  
  

Expressive/Personal Writing

• distinguish between showing and telling (e.g., dramatize, not just summarize, action; establish character through means other than direct characterization)
  
  

Grammar

• understand and apply the rules of agreement (subject-verb, pronoun-antecedent, verb tense)
• recognize and avoid the use of run-on sentences and sentence fragments
• use apostrophes correctly in possessives