Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. The Pros and Cons of Playing on a School Team Parker has been asked to write a paper explaining both what is good and what is bad about playing on a school sports team. 1The form of writing Parker has be assigned is best described as – Anarrative Bpersuasive Cexpository Dinformational 2The audience for this essay would most likely be – Fsoccer moms Gmiddle school students Hpreschoolers Jteachers

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Answer Sheet – For Teacher Use QuestionCorrect AnswerVA SOL Essential Understanding Correlation 1C8.7ba – Organize details to elaborate the central idea. 2G8.7bc – Organize details to elaborate the central idea. Notes to Teacher: The writing subtest of the Grade 8 English test will have a series of brief scenarios, each of which defines a writing task for a specified audience. Items following the statement of the writing task will address planning or prewriting activities relevant to the specified task and will be coded to the Planning, Composing, and Revising reporting category. A rough draft of a response to the specified writing task will follow the planning/prewriting test items. The rough draft will be divided into sections. The first section will have errors which require revision such as the inclusion of a sentence that does not belong or two sentences that need to be combined. Items following the first section of the rough draft will require the student to correct these errors by choosing the correct revision from the answer choices provided. These items will also be coded to the Planning, Composing, and Revising reporting category. The second section of the rough draft will contain embedded errors in usage or mechanics. Items following this section will refer to underlined words or groups of words in the second section of the rough draft and will require students to choose the answer which represents correct usage or mechanics. These items will be coded to the Editing reporting category. In some cases, the underlined words will contain no error and the correct answer will be "as it is." Following the expanded blueprint is a list of usage and mechanics skills which are addressed in the Editing reporting category.

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Below are two lists Parker made before writing his rough draft. Use them to answer questions 3 and 4. 3Which of the following ideas could not be added under Pros? AYou have to compete in long games. BYou win medals and trophies. CYou get to travel to other schools. DYou can earn college scholarships. 4While writing his essay, Parker would want to include all of these except – Fthe friends he has made while playing sports Ga difficult experience he has had on a school team Hstatistics about professional athletes’ income Jhis academic success because of his athletic involvement ProsCons 1. You get lots of exercise.1. You have less free time. 2. You meet many new friends.2. You have to work hard. 3. You gain self-confidence.3. You feel stress. 4. You’re motivated to do better in 4. You lose sometimes, and school. that is not fun.

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Answer Sheet – For Teacher Use QuestionCorrect AnswerVA SOL Essential Understanding Correlation 3A8.7bb – Organize details to elaborate the central idea. 4H8.7bc – Organize details to elaborate the central idea. Notes to Teacher: During the revising stage of the writing process students will revise for focus, organization, and elaboration. To assist students in developing these skills direct instruction must take place on including important details, deleting unnecessary information and varying sentences. The Standards of Learning writing assessments ask students to use their revising skills to identify ways to improve a passage that is provided. To be successful on this section of the test, students must be able to suggest the best way to combine provided sentences, choose a more descriptive way to write provided sentences and locate unneeded information.

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Read first part of Parker’s rough draft. Use it to answer the questions below. (1)Athletics is a huge part of student life. (2)Every day we hear of the school teams’ successes and failures on the field. (3)Participating on a school team can be very rewarding. (4)It can also be very stressful. (5)Football is my favorite sport. (6)What ever the sport, school teams offer many rewards and a few disappointments. 5 How are sentences 3 and 4 best combined without changing their meaning? AParticipating on a rewarding school team can be very stressful. BParticipating on a school team can be very rewarding but also very stressful. CParticipating can be very stressful but also very rewarding on a school team. DParticipating can be very rewarding but also very stressful on a school team. 6Which of these sentences does not belong in this portion of the essay? Fsentence 6 Gsentence 2 Hsentence 1 Jsentence 5

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. QuestionCorrect AnswerVA SOL Essential Understanding Correlation 5B8.7dd – Revise writing for word choice, sentence variety, and transitions among paragraphs. 6J Notes to Teacher: During the revising stage of the writing process students will revise for focus, organization, and elaboration. To assist students in developing these skills direct instruction must take place on including important details, deleting unnecessary information and varying sentences. The Standards of Learning writing assessments will ask students to use their revising skills to identify ways to improve a passage that is provided. To be successful on this section of the test, students must be able to suggest the best way to combine provided sentences, choose a more descriptive way to write provided sentences and locate unneeded information. Answer Sheet – For Teacher Use

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Read the next part of Parker’s rough draft. Use it to answer the questions below. (7)I have been playing baseball for the Junior Varsity team since last September. (8)I have made many new friends. (9)We hang out even when it is not baseball season. (10)Two of my best friends plays on the team with me. (11)We love practicing together. (12)Our workouts are great exercise, and our games are tremendous fun. (13)However, our losses are so disappointing. 7In sentence 10, how is plays best written? Aplayed Bdoes play Cplay Das it is 8How is sentence 13 best written? FHowever our losses are so disappointing. GHowever our losses, are so disappointing. HHowever, our losses are so, disappointing. Jas it is

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. QuestionCorrect AnswerVA SOL Essential Understanding Correlation 7C8.8ac – Use a variety of graphic organizers, including sentence diagrams, to analyze and improve sentence formation and paragraph structure. 8J8.8bi – Use and punctuate correctly varied sentence structures to include conjunctions and transition words. Notes to Teacher: During the editing stage of the writing process students will edit for correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling and sentence construction. Students should be provided with many opportunities to edit and correct punctuation in their writing and the writing of their classmates. The Standards of Learning writing assessments ask students to edit a given passage for punctuation, correct case and number, verb tense, and comparative and superlative degrees. Students will be expected to understand the use of conjunctions and transitional words. Answer Sheet – For Teacher Use

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. Read the next part of Parker’s rough draft. Use it to answer the questions below. (14)Playing on the school baseball team has helped me maintain a B average. (15)If my grade point average drops below a C, I am suspended from the team. (16)Until I bring my grades back up. (17)Maintaining good grades can be stressful. (18)I have less free time due to studying so much. (19)In some classes, like English, I have to work very hard to maintain my grade. (20)If it wasn’t for sports, however, I would not be so successful in school. 9Which is not a complete sentence? Asentence 14 B sentence 15 C sentence 16 D sentence 17 10In sentence 20, how is wasn’t correctly written? Fwas’nt Gwas not Hweren’t Jas it is

Grade 8Week 6 Daily SOL Writing Practice provided by Simply Achieve, Inc. QuestionCorrect AnswerVA SOL Essential Understanding Correlation 9C8.8aa – Use a variety of graphic organizers, including sentence diagrams, to analyze and improve sentence formation and paragraph structure. 10H8.8aa– Use a variety of graphic organizers, including sentence diagrams, to analyze and improve sentence formation and paragraph structure. Answer Sheet – For Teacher Use Notes to Teacher: During the editing stage of the writing process students will edit for use of language, capitalization, punctuation and spelling. Students can earn 14 multiple choice points and 8 possible score from the direct-writing component by accurately editing. On the Grade 8 Standards of Learning writing assessments students will edit for the use of: Grade 6Grade 7Grade 8 subject-verb agreement with intervening, phrases and clauses pronoun-antecedent agreement to include indefinite pronouns maintain consistent tense inflections across paragraphs choose adverbs to describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs use correct spelling for frequently used words choose pronouns to agree with antecedents subject-verb agreement with intervening phrases and clauses edit for verb tense consistency use and punctuate correctly varied sentence structures to include conjunctions and transition words. choose the correct case and number for pronouns in prepositional phrases with compound objects. maintain consistent verb tense across paragraphs use comparative and superlative degrees in adverbs and adjectives