The Girl Who Wasn’t There

Learning Intention: 

I am learning to plan, compose and review different texts to make sure they suit different audiences by including the most appropriate topic and language in order to improve my own writing. 

Success criteria: 

• I can analyse punctuation, spelling and grammatical editing 
• I can use my understanding of punctuation, spelling and grammar rules to make my own rules. 

• I can edit my classmate’s work 

Write an extract of the text incorrectly then have a partner edit the work. 

After reading the text, ask students to identify parts that might have had to be edited by a proofreader. Give the example of capital letter at the beginning of a sentence. Other answers include: 

- capital letters for names 

- correct use of speech marks (including putting the punctuation inside the speech marks) 

- new line for someone else speaking 

- misspelt words 

- missing, incorrect or repeated words 

- missing full stops/question marks/exclamation marks 

- incorrect space in the middle of a word (e.g. some body) 

- space needed to be inserted in a word (e.g. alot) 

For an explicit explanation of basic editing, view the YouTube video Editing Your Writing for Kidsungroup. 

Once the class has exhausted a list of possible editing errors, ask them to choose an extract from the story that is about half a page long. They are to rewrite the text, purposefully putting in errors. Ensure they count how many errors they’re inserting as they go. They need to write the total amount of errors at the bottom of the page. 

Students swap pieces with a partner who has done a different extract to them. Ensure no one has access to the original text during this part of the activity. Using either specific classroom editing rules or an editing symbol page like Proofreading Marksungroup, partners edit the work. Students need to find the number of errors that are indicated at the bottom of the page. They can also edit the work for display around the classroom by using techniques such as rainbow editing, which can be found on the webpage Make Editing Funungroup. 

Once complete, students check their edits against the original text.