WRITING
The Ohio Learning Standards for Language Arts really emphasize writing. (That's a good thing!) Writing stories, writing persuasive arguments, writing research reports, writing in Reading class, writing in Math class, writing in Science class, writing, writing, writing!! Fourth graders will be tested in writing as well. A majority of the spring testing will assess writing and students' command of the English language. It is very important that fourth graders are prepared for this shift. Therefore, we have decided to dedicate a full hour each day to writing. Students will do some creative writing, but more importantly, they will learn to use writing to further their learning with well-written responses, opinions, and research reports.

I will provide each student with a writing folder. We will keep most samples in the folder along with an editor's checklist. We will work hard at each step of the writing process through writing lessons and practice.

     * Opinions            * Narratives
     * Research           * Leads & conclusions
     * Poetry                * Cursive review
     * Articles              * Responses to literature and more 

GRAMMAR
This year we will focus on:
High quality sentences and paragraphs
    * Variety of types and lengths
    * Including more details
    * Choosing more specific words
    * More sophisticated language
    * Transitions
    
Parts of speech
     * Progressive verbs      * Modal auxiliary verbs
     * Order of adjectives    * Quotation marks
     * Relative adverbs       * Relative pronouns
     * Prepositions