Barbara W. Coles Trader
Things I can Do As A Writer
Examples of “Proofreading Skills Grades K-12 Teachers Can Teach Their Students” (Atwell, p. 10).
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1. Puts his/her name and the date on his/her paper.
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2. Reads his/her pieces aloud to a friend.
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3. Leaves spaces between words.
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4. Uses capitals at the beginnings of sentences.
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5. Uses periods (.) at the ends of sentences, when his/her voice drops and stops.
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6. Uses an exclamation mark (!) when showing excitement or strong feelings.
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7. Uses commas between items on a list or in a series.
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8. Uses a caret ( ) to add information.
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9. Uses (‘s) to show possession; that something belongs to somebody.
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10. Uses an apostrophe (‘) to show that a letter or letters are missing (a contraction).
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11. Writes “ ___ and I” at the beginnings of sentences; as the sentence subject.
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12. Uses a straight margin on final copies.
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13. Numbers his/her drafts.
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14. Knows the differences between “their,” ”there,” and “they’re.”
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15. Uses quotation marks (“ “) around the words people say aloud.
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16. Uses a (é) to show where he’ll/she’ll start new paragraphs.
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17. Goes down the next line and indents for new paragraphs.
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18. Divides words between lines and syllables.
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19. Uses a colon (:) before an explanation.
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20. Uses a semicolon (;) to attach two sentences that are about the same thing, where he/she wants to show the connection between two main clauses with similarly related ideas.
The purpose of the individual conferences is to enable the students to review their free writing pieces, help the students to solve their writing problems and think more critically. The instructor will be a good listener, allow the authors to explain, avoid negative statements, be brief but specific, and limit each conference to 3 minutes. The class will be doing independent practice activities in language arts during the individual conferences for free writing.