Revising and Editing Practice + Multiple Choice Practice

Today, we began our STAAR prep and practice over revising and editing.

We've been working on revising and editing all year and applying the skills we've learned to our essay, so the purpose of our practices this week is less about learning new skills and more about choosing the right skills to solve the problems we may encounter on the STAAR.

First, we watched the video below that explains the difference between revising and editing because some people thing that revising and editing are the same thing! Can you believe it?!

Actually, revising and editing focus on different aspects of the essay and even utilize different tools and resources.

(We stopped the video at about 1:22 as the rest of the information only relates to research papers)



Then, as a class, we made a list of the differences between revising and editing. Here are the examples below.



Notice that revision is more about large-scale changes. It's about making the essay better as a whole. For revising, the tools you may want to use could include:

• An outline! (If you made one...and you should have.)
• A highlighter
• An eraser
• Scrap paper (to write out new ideas, to rewrite new sentences, to rearrange paragraphs)
• Your knowledge of the purpose of the genre and of the prompt you are writing for

When you revise, you may find yourself changing large chunks of your essay. That's okay! That's the whole point! Revising is hard, because it requires you to think of your essay not just as a bunch of separate sentences that are squished together on the page, but as a single thread of thought that you must expertly weave into a tapestry of effective communication.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm being extra again. :)

Editing is about small-scale changes. It's more about the nitty-gritty. Ultimately, editing is easier because it is about making small changes within individual sentences. The tools  you may use in editing is:

• A dictionary (it is more helpful than you think!)
• Your knowledge of sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization (and maybe parts of speech) (all of this should be in your writing folder or your class binder, by the way!)

Editing will make your essay look good, not necessarily sound good. An essay that has been edited but not revised will look beautiful, but say nothing at all. That is why we use BOTH to make our essays effective.

But today, we aren't going to be revising or editing our writing. Instead, we are going to be practicing using our knowledge of editing and revising to determine the correct answer to STAAR formatted problems.

To start, we need to talk about how to tell the difference between revising questions and editing questions.

On the STAAR test, revising and editing are both lumped together in the same section. The only way to quickly and accurately identify if it's an editing passage or a revising passage is to READ THE DIRECTIONS!

The directions on STAAR for revising passages

The directions on STAAR for editing passages

Yep, they tell you in the directions which skill they are going to be assessing!

STAAR is ultimately a test of skill and stamina. 5 hours is a LONG time to sit and test! And we know revising is a more difficult skill than editing. Therefore, we don't want to end up wasting energy trying to apply our knowledge of revision to an editing question and vice versa.

For our in-class practice today, we determined it was an editing practice.



That means I really don't have to waste time reading the whole essay, so instead, I skip straight to the questions and only highlight the specific sentences the questions ask about!

And, of course, I made sure to grab my handy dandy dictionary!

In class, we went through and modeled the thinking process for each question in this packet. Here, I will only be doing that for one question.

STAAR questions are usually written to follow a specific format: 2 answer choices are obviously wrong or have a serious flaw, 1 answer choice is close to being correct or seems correct on the surface, and 1 answer choice is flat out the right one.

Looking at A, I can say pretty confidently that A could be the correct answer. "Filed" doesn't seem like it is the word the writer was looking for. It should probably be changed to "filled."

But what if it's supposed to be a fishing term? Hmm...let's check the other answer choices just to make sure.

B might also be right, but only if the word after water - "and" - is acting as a FANBOYS to make a compound sentence. But that would mean that both clauses on either side of the word "and" are independent clauses. But if I look at them, the second phrase after "and" is missing a subject, which means it isn't an independent clause, so it doesn't need a comma.

This means B is incorrect.

Looking at C, I can say that answer choice is incorrect as well, because the "it" is referring to the fish that the writer caught, but the fish is already mentioned in the sentence. Adding "it" would make the sentence repetitive, so C is incorrect.

Answer choice D has me uncertain. I'm not sure if the word "red-bellied" needs a hyphen or not. So, I referred to my dictionary to see if maybe I could find it.

There isn't an entry for "red-bellied," but there IS a definition for red-faced and red-handed. Both refer to parts of the body, so it seems like it would be grammatically acceptable. So I can say that D is also incorrect.

Therefore, answer choice A must be correct.

Seem tedious and extra?

Maybe, but it is important! STAAR questions want to see if you have MASTERED a skill, not just learned a little about it but can't remember the specifics. There will be answer choices that seem right at first glance (like answer choice B) and answer choices that you may not be completely certain about (like answer choice D), so it's best to try to prove why your answer is right and all the others are wrong!

Doing this can also help you eliminate an answer choice such as "Make no change." If you can prove that one of the other answer choices is grammatically correct, then you can be certain that "Make no change" is not a correct answer!

On block day, you will be working with a partner to create a how-to guide about how to select the write answer choice to ONE question from our next in-class multiple choice practice.

Handouts from Friday - Grammar Review Packet and "Anthem" Notes/Anticipation Guide

Below is the Grammar Test Review packet. It is extra credit on the grammar and writing test.



Below is the Guided Notes for the introduction to "Anthem" and, below that, is the powerpoint with the information needed to fill in these blanks.





Finally, this is the anticipation guide students completed on Friday and Monday. We used this assignment to lead our debate and discussion in class today. This assignment was due Tuesday, January 23.

Grammar - Quincunx (cont.)

Today, we discussed complex sentences, subordinating conjunctions, and dependent clauses. We added notes to our quincunx over all three of these topics.

Both compound and simple sentences do not involve dependent clauses, but complex sentences do. A complex sentences is when at least one independent clause and one dependent clause are joined with a subordinating conjunction (we call them AAAWWUUBBIS words!)

A subordinating conjunction is special because it has the power to transform a clause, whether it's independent or dependent, into a dependent clause.

So, how exactly does this work? Here's an example.

A clause consists of a subject and a predicate (everything after the subject). A predicate can include a verb and an object or just the verb. Here's two examples of the same subject with different lengths of predicates:

1. the students wrote
2. the students wrote an essay

Both of these contain a subject (the students) and a predicate (wrote/wrote an essay). If we attach a subordinating conjunction to the beginning of it:

1. while the students wrote
2. while the students wrote an essay

Neither are complete thoughts. They need to be joined with an independent clause in order to become a complete sentence.

Now, since complex sentences involve two different types of clauses, the reader has to be able to tell when one clause ends and the other begins. And since the subordinating conjunction can be in the middle or at the beginning of the sentence, there are two ways to signal the change from one clause to another.

If you start with your dependent clause (the part with the subordinating conjunction), you need to use a comma to signal the transition:

While the students wrote, the teacher helped out.

OR

While the students wrote an essay, the teacher helped out.

Notice that both dependent clauses work even though one has a longer predicate than the other. 

If you want to start your sentence with your independent clause (the part that doesn't contain a subordinating conjunction), the subordinating conjunction itself will tell the reader where your dependent clause begins.

The teacher helped out while the students wrote.

OR

The teacher helped out while the students wrote an essay.

After we completed our notes, we went on the hunt for each sentence type in Lord of the Flies and our own writing and added them to the underside of each flap. 

When pulling your example from reading, don't forget to format your quote like this:

"Quote from the book." - Page #, Title

A few things to remember (SERIOUSLY, YOU SHOULD READ THESE):

• Transitions and prepositions (words that indicate location or time) do not alter the sentence type. For instance
• "Later, we went to the movies" is a simple sentence. If you remove the word "later", which is a transition, you have "we went to the movies," which does not contain any conjunctions and is an independent clause.
• "We wrote poems for each other" is also a simple sentence. "For" may be a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS), but that is not its function in this sentence. The best way to test if something is a compound sentence is to remove the FANBOYS and replace it with a period. If both of the new sentences make sense, then it is a compound sentence. If not, then it is likely the FANBOYS is actually a preposition instead
• "We wrote poems. Each other." Yeah, that doesn't make much sense.  
• The answer to the bonus question this week is to write two example sentences: one compound and one complex. The catch? They must have something to do with cats. You may email them to me before 3 on Friday for 5 extra credit points on an assignment from this week or write them on a pinboard card and submit it to the pinboard during class. 

Grammar - Quincunx

This week, we will be focusing primarily on...GRAMMAR! Of course, the most EXCITING subject in all of English!

Okay, so grammar isn't totally exciting and amazing, but it IS important!

Today, we focused on grammar in terms of sentence structure by creating a tool called a quincunx (pronounced kwin-chunk). Creating the quincunx involves some paper folding, so watch the video  below to learn how.

Supplies needed: One piece of 8.5x11 or 11x17 paper, scissors (optional)



Once you have your quincunx created, we first wrote notes about the building blocks of sentences: words, phrases, and clauses.

Words are the smallest units; you can't have a sentence shorter than one word!

Phrases are groups of words that are connected in some way like "a brown dog" or "runs down the street."

Clauses are like phrases but they must have a subject (something doing some kind of action) and a predicate (everything after the subject, including the verb/action). For example "a brown dog runs down the street."

Independent clauses can stand on their own as sentences, like the one above: "A brown dog runs down the street."

Dependent clauses cannot stand on their own as sentences because they do not represent complete thoughts. For instance, if I attached the subordinating conjunction "while" to the clause above:
"While a brown dog runs down the street..."

The first sentence type we took notes over were simple sentences

Notice the sample sentence at the bottom of the notes.

The second sentence type we looked at were compound sentences. Compound sentences can be created by joining two simple sentences (or more) with a comma and a coordinating conjunction (also called FANBOYS).

We took notes over coordinating conjunctions on the inside of our quincunx.

On block day, we will discuss complex sentences, dependent clauses, and subordinating conjunctions as well as fill in examples from both our reading and writing of each sentence type.

Get some sleep tonight and remember, it's always in style to use proper grammar and punctuation!