Ashley Roman

Dr. McKool & Dr. Hester

ELD 308 & ELD 376
Fall 2019
Writing Mini-Lesson: Editing
Grade​: 4th

Time​: 7 - 10 minutes

New Jersey Student Learning Standards:

W.4.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using narrative
technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences
W.4.5. With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing
as needed by planning, revising, and editing.

Objective​: Students will use the C.O.P.S (capitalization, organization, punctuation, and spelling)
strategy to edit their narratives.

Materials:
● COPS anchor chart (inspiration anchors posted below)
● Narrative - “Riley’s Walk”
● Self-editing checklist (inspiration check
● Pencils
● Colored pens
● Highlighters

Lesson Sequence:
1. Lesson Introduction
● “Writers, today we are going to call the police on our own writing. That’s right,
we are going to use the COPS writing strategy to edit our narratives. Now I must
let you in a secret. I used this strategy in middle school, high school, and college.
And guess what? Authors like Kate DeCamillo who wrote our current read aloud
The Tiger Rising​ use this strategy! You are an author in the making when using
it!”
2. State the Objective and Purpose
● “Today, we are going to use the COPS writing strategy to edit our narratives to
move into our final draft and publishing. We will learn how to check for capital
letters, punctuation, organization, and spelling in our papers. With this handy
dandy checklist and your paper in hand, your narrative will soar to new heights!”
3. Teach and Model
● “Writers, I need to tell you another secret. I used this exact chart as a student in
fourth grade and loved it! Let’s unravel the cops strategy piece by piece!”
● Read the narrative, “Riley’s Walk,” which will be used in the think aloud.
● “Shout it out, what’s the first letter in COPS?”
● “C? Yes, awesome! The C in cops stands for capitalization. What words
do we need to capitalize you ask? Who can think of some things that
always have capital letters?”
● “Yes, we capitalize names of all people. We also capitalize the names of
months, days of the week, and places. Capitalization shows importance.”
● “Now when I think of capitalization, I always think back to the first word
in each sentence. Is my first word capitalized? If it is, I leave it be. But, oh
no! I see one I did not capitalize in my own narrative. Like in years past, I
will put three lines under my letter to remind myself I need to capitalize
it.”
● “Shout it out, what’s the second letter in COPS?”
● “O, yes that’s the one! O in COPS is a tad tricky to guess on. It stands for
organization. We need to think of questions like, “Does my sentence
sound grammatical? If I read this aloud, will it sound like a normal
conversation?””
● “Hmm... when I think of organization, I know I have trouble catching it in
my head reading silently. So I may ask my writing partner to read it, or I
may read it aloud in a whisper voice.”
● “As I read aloud my narrative on Riley, I realized something in sentence
three. It reads, “I was walking my dog Riley when she walked walking
away.” As I’m reading this, I am thinking to myself, this sounds funny.
Let me check in something out closer... I wrote, “... she walked walking
away.” I put two verbs when I needed just one. So I will write a curl to
omit it when I publish my paper.”
● “Shout it out, what’s the third letter in COPS?”
● “P, splendid job! P in COPS stands for punctuation. Who can name some
punctuation marks?”
● “Period. Question mark. Commas. These are all lovely answers! When we
edit our papers, we need to check the most common places for the
punctuation marks - at the end of the sentence and in some cases, before
dialogue begins.”
● “As I reread my paper, I will think to check every sentence. Does it have
an ending punctuation? Do my questions end with question marks? Do my
statements end with periods?”
 ● “Shout it out, what’s the fourth letter in COPS?”
● “S, that’s it! S in cops stands for spelling. We must reread our papers word
for word to catch spelling errors. I’ll let you in on a secret, I struggled with
spelling in fourth grade. If I was unsure of the spelling of a word, I would
grab a dictionary, yes a paperback dictionary and not a computer.
● “If you are unsure of a word’s spelling, we circle it. Let me take a look at
the word brindle. In my narrative, I was unsure how to spell the word
brindle. Is it -el or -le in the ending? I thought to myself that it is best to
write what I may think. As I reread my paper, I will be sure to circle it to
remind myself to check the dictionary spelling of the word.”
● “From what we have gathered with the COPS strategy, give me a thumbs up or
down if you feel comfortable using it with your own checklist.”
4. Guided Practice
● The narrative “Riley’s Walk” will be displayed on the board.
● The teacher has previously read “Riley’s Walk” to the students
● The students will turn and talk to discuss two errors in the story, how to fix it, and
which editing marks are necessary.
5. Independent Practice/Assessment
● “Writers, as you had back to your flexible seating for writer’s workshop, I want
you to use COPS checklist to edit your papers. Please use a colored pen to make
editing marks. These leave track marks and show me how your writing has
progressed just as an author’s would.”
6. Closure
● “What does the C in COPS stand for?”
● “What does the O in COPS stand for?”
● “What does the P in COPS stand for?”
● “What does the S in COPS stand for?”
● “Why do we use the COPS strategy?”
7. How will you know the lesson has been successful?
● The teacher will determine success based on the comparison of the first draft to
the edited draft. Colored pen will display prominent markings on the child’s
narrative to show a before edit, mid-edit, and final edit thoughts. Ideally, success
will be shown as the child uses the COPS checklist and honestly checks off they
have read their paper, applied the COPS strategy, and has shown the proper
editing markings as such.”