When developing personal experience writing, students will:

• become aware that they have a wealth of personal experience worth recording

• be able to recall a personal experience, write independently to recount that experience, and revise and edit the writing for sense, meaning, and effect.

When developing character writing, students will:

• become aware that they can respond to characters, real or fictitious, in a unique, personal way

• be able to describe a character simply in a character sketch or develop a more complex character analysis

• revise and edit for sense, meaning, and effect.

When developing explanation writing, students will:

• produce "a sequenced text which usually provides reasons why things happen or how things work ... [This is in order to] account for something or show some causal link between one thing and another." (Describe, Explain, Argue, page 6)

• revise and edit the writing for sense, meaning, and effect.

When developing argument writing, students will:

• "persuade a reader to the writer's point of view ... through the presentation of relevant points with supporting evidence." (English Online)

• revise and edit for sense, meaning, and effect.

The principal question that teachers must ask when assessing their students' writing in any of these genres is: