1. Read the prompt carefully.
- Find key words.
- Consider the purpose and audience. How will they affect your writing?
2. Develop a plan. Think of
what you want to say before writing. Use a graphic organizer. For example, for a story, think of a beginning, middle, and end. For a comparison/contrast essay, fill out a T-chart or a Venn diagram.
3. Support your ideas. Use
facts, examples, and details to strengthen your response. Avoid making general statements that are unsupported.
4. Use a variety of sentence
structures. Include compound sentences, varied sentence beginnings, and different sentence lengths and types.
5. Choose clear, precise
words. Use words that create pictures and help readers understand what you mean.
6. Check your writing.
If this is a timed test, you may not have time to recopy your work. However, you can neatly add, delete, or change words and make corrections. It pays to read your work again before handing it in.
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The writer focuses on the schedule of third-grade students during the day. All the sentences relate to third graders. A detail such as what fourth graders are doing during a particular time or how long Ms. Perez has been a teacher would take away from the focus.
