Topic: Speaking and Listening Standards, Grade 8.

Review:

.Engage in group discussion.

.Qualify or justify your own thinking after listening to others’ questions.

.Determine purpose and perspective in oral, visual or multimodal formats.

.Assess the truth of a speaker’s or presenter’s premises and the validity of conclusions.

.Present claims and findings with relevant evidence.

.Incorporate visual displays that strengthen presentations.

.Demonstrate command of formal English.

Comment: How do I define “formal English?” Eliminating certain characteristics of conversation like needless repetition, especially with words like “it,” “there,” “get,” “thing”; making clear the antecedents of the demonstrative pronouns “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those”; eliminating sexist language by using the plural to avoid such constructions as “his and her,” “he and she”; carefully using parallel structure, preferring  the active voice to the passive voice and correcting dangling and misplaced modifiers. RayS.

Source:  “CCSSI (Common Core State Standards Initiative) for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies and Science.” March 10, 2010. You will find the standards at http://www.corestandards.org/.