Produce clear writing for a task, purpose and audience; revise with feedback, edit for grade 8 conventions and publish with technology

Learning goal: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience. With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed, with editing that demonstrates command of the grade 8 Language standards. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing, present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently, and interact and collaborate with others.

Task, purpose and audience are three different questions. The task is what you have been asked to produce: a letter, a report, a post, a paragraph, a five-page essay. The purpose is what the writing is for: to persuade, to explain, to narrate, to request, to record. The audience is who will read it and what they already know, want and expect. The three together determine development (how much and which content), organization (what order and structure) and style (how formal, how technical, how long the sentences run). Grade-specific expectations for the three writing types are defined in standards 1 to 3; this lesson is about choosing among them and adjusting them for the reader in front of you.

One message, three audiences. Suppose the courtyard committee has chosen the outdoor classroom and the same writer must tell three audiences. The following three model texts are original and short.

To families, a notice of under 60 words in the weekly newsletter. "The courtyard reopens in September as an outdoor classroom with seating for 32 and a shade canopy. Teachers may book it for lessons in fall and spring. Students should bring a water bottle on days their class is scheduled outside. Questions about the project may be sent to the main office." Development is minimal: what changes, what a family must do. Organization is fact, then action. Style is plain and warm.

To the principal, a one-paragraph recommendation. "The committee recommends the outdoor classroom. Of 22 teachers surveyed, 14 said they would use it at least twice a month; 5 said they would use garden beds. Both proposals fit the 18,000-dollar budget, so cost did not decide the choice. The deciding factor was maintenance: no one is assigned to water beds in summer, and the Maple Hollow log shows what followed at one school when watering was unassigned. We recommend approving the classroom estimate of 16,500 dollars and revisiting garden beds once a summer watering plan exists." Development includes the evidence a decision-maker needs; organization is recommendation, evidence, deciding factor, next step; style is formal and compact.

To students, a post on the school news site. Here the writer uses headings ("What was decided," "Why," "What happens next"), a two-row table of the survey counts, a link to the full survey report and a comment thread. Development is fuller than the family notice because students asked for reasons; organization uses formatting so a reader can skim; style is formal but direct.

Same facts, three texts. Choosing which facts, in which order, in which voice, is what standard 4 asks.

Planning. Before drafting, answer the three questions in writing, then choose the text type, the length and the structure. A plan for the principal's paragraph is four lines: recommendation, evidence, deciding factor, next step. A plan for the argument essay is the four-column table from the first lesson in this unit. Planning is required in this unit because it is the cheapest place to fix a piece of writing; experienced writers plan in different ways, but all of them plan.

Revising with guidance and support from peers and adults. Revision changes what the writing says and how it is organized; it is not proofreading. The standard says to focus on how well purpose and audience have been addressed, and that gives the peer conference its questions: What is this writing trying to do? Who is it for? Where does it stop serving that reader? A good peer or adult response names a place ("the second paragraph gives me three numbers and I do not know which one matters") rather than a grade ("it's good"). The writer then decides among four responses: revise the passage, rewrite it from scratch, try a new approach (a different organization, a different opening, a different text type) or leave it and explain why. Trying a new approach is the response students use least and need most: a report that is not working as chronology may work as problem-solution, and the only way to find out is to draft the first paragraph both ways.

Editing for conventions must demonstrate command of the Language standards up to grade 8. Editing comes after revision, because there is no point polishing a paragraph that will be cut. At grade 8 the editing checklist has specific items. Verbals: gerunds ("watering the beds takes time"), participles ("the leaning plants") and infinitives ("to water them by bucket") are verb forms doing a noun's, adjective's or adverb's job; know which one a sentence uses and whether it is doing that job. Voice: "The committee chose the classroom" is active; "The classroom was chosen by the committee" is passive; use active to emphasize the actor and passive to emphasize the action or when the actor is unknown, and do not shift between them within a sentence without reason. Mood: indicative states ("the key is missing"), imperative commands ("take the green bucket"), interrogative asks ("how far is the fountain?"), conditional supposes ("if the key were found, Dev could use the valve") and subjunctive expresses a wish, a demand or suggestion, or a state contrary to fact ("Ms. Okoro suggested that each volunteer be given a key"); correct inappropriate shifts, such as a set of instructions that moves from imperative to indicative halfway through. Punctuation: a comma, an ellipsis or a dash can indicate a pause or break, each with a different weight ("The key was gone, again." / "The key was gone . . . again." / "The key was gone—again."), and an ellipsis indicates an omission from a quotation. Spelling: check it last, with a reference, and check homophones by hand because software does not know which word you meant.

Use technology to produce, publish, present relationships and collaborate. A word processor or shared document produces the text; a school site, a class page or a printed and posted copy publishes it. Technology presents the relationships between information and ideas efficiently when the writer uses headings that name categories, tables that align comparable numbers, a hyperlink to a source in place of a paragraph describing it, and a chart when the reader needs to see a trend. It supports interaction and collaboration when a shared document lets a peer leave a comment beside the sentence it concerns, when suggestion mode records a proposed change without erasing the original, and when version history lets the writer compare the draft before and after a conference. None of this replaces judgment: a link to a source is only as good as the source, and a comment is only useful if the writer decides what to do with it.

Worked audience adjustment: The principal's paragraph contains "14 of 22 teachers said they would use it at least twice a month." For the family notice, the writer cut that sentence. Families were not asked to make a decision, so the survey evidence does not serve their purpose; what serves it is the instruction to bring a water bottle. For the student post, the writer kept the numbers but moved them into a table under the heading "Why," because students had asked for reasons and a table lets them compare 14 and 5 at a glance. The facts were identical; the selection and presentation changed with the audience.

Worked peer conference and response: Peer note on an argument draft: "Paragraph three gives the cost figures and the survey figures and the Maple Hollow log together and I cannot tell which one is your reason." The writer had three options. Revise: split the paragraph into three, one per reason. Rewrite: draft the paragraph again with a topic sentence naming a single reason. Try a new approach: reorder the whole essay so the strongest reason (maintenance) comes last, just before the conclusion. The writer chose the third, drafted the new order's first paragraph, compared it with the original in version history and kept the new order because the conference had shown that the maintenance reason was the one readers remembered.

Worked editing pass, grade 8 items: Draft sentence: "Watering by bucket was tried by Dev and then he decides it is not enough." Problems: unnecessary passive ("was tried by Dev") shifts emphasis away from the actor for no reason; the tense shifts from past to present. Edit: "Dev tried watering by bucket and then decided it was not enough." Here "watering" is a gerund, the object of "tried." Second draft sentence, from a set of instructions: "Take the green bucket from the top shelf. Then you fill it at the gym fountain." The mood shifts from imperative to indicative; edit to "Then fill it at the gym fountain." Third: a quotation shortened for a report, "Eight beds. Ten weeks. If nobody signs, we do not plant," can be cut to "Eight beds . . . If nobody signs, we do not plant," with the ellipsis marking the omission.

Worked presentation of relationships: A draft report described the teacher survey in four sentences. The published version replaced them with a two-column table (option, teachers who would use it) and one sentence pointing to it, and linked the words "full survey report" to the report itself. The relationship between the two numbers is now visible in the alignment of the table rather than buried in prose.

Three-audience task: Take a single set of facts from this unit (the survey, the budget, the Maple Hollow log, or the story of the fourteen trips) and write it for three audiences: a notice of no more than 60 words for families, a one-paragraph recommendation for a decision-maker and a formatted post for students with at least one heading and one table or link. Before writing each, record the task, the purpose and the audience in one line apiece. Afterwards, list one fact you included for one audience and cut for another, and say why.

Independent performance: Choose one longer piece from this unit (argument, explanation or narrative). Hold a peer or adult conference using the two questions "what is this trying to do?" and "where does it stop serving its reader?" Record the responses. Then do all four: revise one passage, rewrite one paragraph from scratch, try a new approach to one element (organization, opening or text type) and keep or reject it with a reason, and complete an editing pass that checks verbals, active and passive voice, verb mood and shifts, comma, ellipsis and dash for pauses and omissions, and spelling. Produce the final version in a shared document with at least one heading, one table or chart where it clarifies a relationship, and one hyperlink to a source you actually used. Share it with a peer for comments and answer at least two. Submit: the conference notes, the version history showing the before and after of your new-approach trial, and the published link or printed copy. Success criteria: every change is tied to purpose or audience; every edit names the grade 8 convention it applies; the published piece presents at least one relationship between ideas more efficiently than prose alone would.