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8th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 9 of 12

Write It Better

Voice, revising and proofreading

What your child practices

Choosing the right form and tone for an audience, using reliable sources and giving credit, building voice, acknowledging other perspectives, and revising, editing and proofreading drafts.

Alaska content standards learning standard: W.8.5 · revising and proofreading

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Use an outline to organize ideas before you draft.
  2. Revise to add evidence and cut wordiness. Edit and proofread for errors.
  3. Match form and tone to your audience, use reliable sources and give credit.

Example: Remove the wordiness: “Due to the fact that it was raining, the game was postponed.” “Due to the fact that” uses five words. “Because” says the same thing in one. Answer: Because it was raining, the game was postponed.

Write It Better in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 9 of 12 in 8th grade English Language Arts, after Digital Citizens and before Precise Words & Spelling.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What is the best way to give credit when you use someone else's idea?

    • mention it only if you copy exact words
    • name the source in your text and list it in your sources
    • use it without mentioning it, because ideas are free
    • change a few words and skip the credit

  2. Question 2

    What is the main purpose of an outline?

    • To choose a font
    • To print the final copy
    • To check spelling
    • To organize ideas before writing a draft

  3. Question 3

    When you revise a draft, you should mostly…

    • only fix spelling
    • improve the ideas, organization and clarity
    • only make it longer
    • only change the font

  4. Question 4

    A writer reads a draft aloud. Why?

    • To change the topic
    • To skip revising
    • To hear awkward sentences and missing words
    • To make it longer

  5. Question 5

    Which sentence is the most precise?

    • The animal did something to the thing.
    • The pet did stuff.
    • The kitten pounced on the red yarn.
    • A small creature moved near an object.

  6. Question 6

    Which revision removes the wordiness? “Due to the fact that it was raining, the game was postponed.”

    • The game, because of rain, postponed.
    • Because of the fact that rain was falling, the game ended up being postponed.
    • Because it was raining, the game was postponed.
    • It rained and postponed.

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