WHAT IT IS:

Effective for all ages and content areas, the Editing Checklist is a student resource for editing a writing project.

HOW IT WORKS:

As expected the use of an editing checklist is straightforward. Create a checklist for students to use when editing based on the current focus areas. To be most effective, limit an editing checklist to around 5 items. On the checklist, be sure to include both a description of the focus area and an example of usage for each item.

Teachers are encouraged to leverage both general expectations and new focus areas. If the classroom expectations for writing include several items, one of the checklist items might encapsulate all of them by stating “Correctly use the following general expectations: …”, listing each of those ongoing considerations that students are expected to use correctly in all writing.