Revisions - Test Prep

Mrs. Johnson's class forges ahead with a review of the last nine weeks. Can you believe that!? We have almost completed the first nine week term! Wow! Nine weeks tests begin Tuesday, and we are ready!

Today, in language, Mrs. Johnson reviewed the composing process. Good writers go through a process. First, they plan. This is called prewriting. (Remember when we learned that pre- meant before? Prewriting is something we do before we write.) We could do this in the form of a graphic organizer, outline, or just brainstorming. After we have planned what we will write about, it is time to write our draft. Drafting is our first attempt at putting our writing together. This is usually full of mistakes, but we can fix that later! After writing our ideas into paragraph form, we begin to revise our writing. It is this part of the writing process that we switch sentences around, add details, add more description, etc. Next, it is time to edit. Editing a paper is just fixing little grammar mistakes. For example, we might fix capital letters, punctuation, spelling, or verb tense. When our paper is ready to be written perfectly, we write our final draft and PUBLISH! Publishing doesn't mean we put it into a book necessarily. Publishing simply means that we share our writing with others - friends, family, teachers, etc.

Today, Mrs. Johnson showed us how the composing process may be tested next week. She pulled a revision question from some of her handy sample items. The question looked like this:

Mrs. Johnson covered up the answer choices, because she wanted us to really think through this question strategically. She has been hollering all week about strategies and gameplans and winning. She acts like she coaches football, and it's halftime. We cheer and yell back! We are pumped for next week!

We all had a white piece of construction paper (Mrs. Johnson never goes a day without construction paper!). We folded and cut it into fourths. On each part, we wrote one of the sentences. Then, we worked with a group to put the story in order. Narrative stories are told in sequential order, so we already had that clue.

James and Tatyanna share the workload as they write the sentences on their pieces.

Once Charles and Jendaya wrote their sentences, they read them together to see exactly what the story was about.

Jordan, Kenyada, and Sharnecia have read their story pieces. Now, they are thinking about what has to happen first in the story. They look for clues.

Arrion, De'Eric, and Alero debate about one part.

Kristin and Nadia figure theirs out. Now, they are checking it by reading the story to see if it makes sense.

After everyone put their story parts in order, Mrs. Johnson went over the story with us. We discussed what clues were there to help us order the story. Then, she uncovered the answer choices. All we had to do was find the one with the same order as what we had. Easy as 1, 2, 3! Next week, we MUST take every test question one at a time and use our strategies! We will not be tricked. We will not be beat. We will win! Go Frogs!