High School English I: Writing Study Guide for the STAAR test

Editing

As mentioned earlier, the 18 writing-based questions on the STAAR test are split evenly between revision and editing. Unlike revision, which is looking at the “big picture” of a text and addressing content and clarity, editing starts to get into the nitty gritty of a text. Editing requires you to read more carefully, line by line or sentence by sentence, and pay close attention to the details of the writing. In the editing stage, you are evaluating that pesky grammar stuff which, if applied incorrectly, can make a text difficult for an audience to read and understand. Editing also includes checking spelling, punctuation, and word choice. It is the final step before publication, so it’s focusing on the text as a completed product, and this is the “polish” to make the text perfect for the reader.

Conventions

Conventions is the term used to refer to writing elements like spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. When implemented properly, conventions make a text clear and easy to read and understand. When not implemented correctly, misuse of conventions can cause a text to be confusing or unclear. There is a difference in the conventions used based on audience and purpose. Your editing of conventions in a school-related text will probably be much more thorough than for a text message you send to your friend or a quick note you leave for your mom. Formal academic writing requires that conventions are used correctly.

Parts of Speech

There are eight parts of speech, but the STAAR assessment of editing requires that you know them more in-depth than you would to just list them. While you may be able to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections, the test will ask you more complex questions about them, like which sentence has the correct usage (and give you different verb forms). A question may ask which sentence is written correctly and have answer options that misuse one of the conventions. Be on the lookout for the following speech parts and ensure you know how to use them correctly and can identify when someone else does so.

Active and Passive Tenses—Sentences may be written in active or passive tense (sometimes referred to as active or passive voice). In active tense sentences, the subject of the sentence actively participates in the action of the verb by doing it, having done it, or be planning to do it. In other words, the time in which the action of the verb occurs doesn’t matter—it could be past, present, or future tense, but if the subject did, is doing, or will do the verb, it’s an active tense.

In a sentence written in passive tense, the subject of the sentence has the verb done to it and is the receiver rather than the doer. Again, time doesn’t matter—the action could have taken place in the past, it could be taking place now, or it could happen in the future If the action being done to the subject and not by the subject, it’s passive tense. Academic writing tends to prefer active tense so, when possible, select a sentence written in active tense (assuming the rest of the text also uses active tense).

Verbals—A verbal refers to any verb form where the word is functioning as a different part of speech, not as a verb. Verbals may function as nouns or adjectives. Here are three common verbal types to be on the lookout for.

Verbals: Gerunds—Gerunds look like verbs, but they act as nouns. Gerunds end in -ing, but not all words ending in -ing are gerunds. For example:

Anna’s cooking is delicious.

In this sentence, cooking acts like a noun because it is what is delicious. But it’s used differently in this sentence:

Anna is cooking in the kitchen.

Here, cooking is what she is doing, and it’s part of the verb phrase.

Verbals: Infinitives—Infinitives look like verbs, but they start with to and act like nouns or adjectives. For example:

The dog was waiting to eat the cat’s food.

In this sentence, the verb phrase is was waiting. Although eat is a verb, in this case there is a to before it and it’s acting like a noun—the thing the dog was waiting to do.

Verbals: Participles—Participles look like verbs, but they act as adjectives in a sentence. Participles end in -ing or -ed. For example:

The waitress, exhausted from a long day at work, sat down in her favorite chair and took a nap.

In this sentence, the waitress’s action is actually sat (The waitress sat down in her favorite chair). The word exhausted is acting as an adjective, even though exhaust is a verb (Mark exhausted his dog by playing fetch with him in the park.).

One of the common mistakes when using participles is to “misplace” them. That doesn’t mean they’re lost; it means they’re in the wrong place in a sentence or that the sentence is missing important information that would make the participle clear. For example:

Racing around the turn in the road, the cow came into view.

In this sentence, it is unclear who or what is racing around the turn in the road. It’s probably not the cow. This is a misplaced participle (sometimes called a misplaced modifier or a dangling participle) because the sentence begins with a participle (racing around the turn in the road), but the subject of the sentence is not who or what the phrase is about.

Clauses: Restrictive and Non-Restrictive—Clauses (a group of words with a subject and a predicate) can be restrictive or non-restrictive. A restrictive clause is a clause that is essential to understanding the meaning of a sentence. If it were taken out, the meaning of the sentence would change. So it is “restrictive” in that it cannot be omitted.

A non-restrictive clause is not essential to understanding the meaning of a sentence. It is additional information that is nice to have included, but the information it provides is not necessary for understanding the rest of the sentence. In the STAAR test, some questions may ask for the best way to combine or rewrite sentences.

This is a good place for the test-makers to test your ability to identify which clauses are restrictive and essential to understanding the sentence so that they must remain, and which are non-restrictive and could be taken out to cut down on wordiness or to make the text more concise.

Reciprocal Pronouns—Reciprocate means to give in return (Mary does something nice for Al, so Al reciprocates and does something nice for Mary). A reciprocal pronoun refers to the pronoun used when two or more people perform an action, and everyone receives the results of that action. Any time mutual action is done, reciprocal pronouns are used.

There are two choices for reciprocal pronouns (which are actually pronoun phrases): each other and one another. When there are two people, things, or groups engaged in exchanging an action, it is appropriate to use each. For example, “Lana and Logan can’t be in the same room as each other.” Or, “Mom and Dad bought each other anniversary gifts.” When there are more than two people, things, or groups that are performing the same action, one is used, as is the case with “Students in the talkative class all blamed one another for being noisy.” Or, “The mourners at the funeral comforted one another.”

Sentences

Sentences are groups of words that contain a subject, a predicate, and express a complete thought. The STAAR test poses questions about the best way to combine sentences or the best way to rewrite a sentence, so it’s important to make sure you know the different styles. Again, if you need more help with sentence types, please read here about sentence structure by scrolling down under “Writing Any Essay.”

Simple—A simple sentence is the most basic level of sentence. It is one independent clause that contains a subject and a verb, and it expresses a complete thought.

Matt bought a milkshake.

Compound—A compound sentence is a sentence that has two or more independent clauses but no dependent clauses. The clauses are joined by a comma and coordinating conjunction or a semi-colon. For example:

The dog chased the cat, and the cat ran up the tree.

Complex—A complex sentence has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. When the dependent clause starts the sentence, it is followed by a comma and then the independent clause. When the dependent clause comes at the end of the sentence and it should not be set off by commas.

Because he did not review for the test, Frank did not pass.

Frank did not pass because he did not review for the test.

Compound/Complex— A compound-complex sentence is the most complicated and intricate sentence type. It contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

After she closed the multi-million dollar deal, Sarah asked her boss for a raise, but he just laughed at her and told her to take the rest of the day off instead.

Other Written Conventions

In addition to the conventions named above, the STAAR test assesses your ability to identify and correct mistakes in the following conventions. These questions may ask you directly, “What change should be made in sentence number __?” and then provide you with several grammar, spelling, capitalization, or punctuation options from which to select the right answer.

Capitalization

Although it’s easy to become lazy with capitalization in texting, it is important to remember and apply the rules of capitalization to formal academic writing. Remember to capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence, the first letter of proper nouns, titles (of books, poems, articles, etc.), acronyms, and always the pronoun I.

There are some things that are not capitalized, like titles that come after a person’s name (Barry Johnson, president of the association), occupations (painter Sarah Reese), or family member designations when they are not used as a proper noun (Margot’s dad forgot her birthday.). For more capitalization reminders, visit our Capitalization study guide in our English Basics test.

Punctuation

There are more punctuation choices than some people realize. While periods and commas are the most commonly used and question marks and exclamation points serve their purpose, there are also things like those pesky colons and semi-colons, parentheses, dashes, and hyphens—ugh. Below are two of the most commonly tested punctuation features, but more information about punctuation rules can be found by visiting our English Basics study guide on punctuation if you feel you need to brush up on the rest.

Quotation Marks— Quotation marks are used most often to indicate the exact words spoken by someone as a direct quote.

Jim said, “The purpose of this meeting is to meet your neighbors.”

However, they can also be used by authors to indicate sarcasm or irony; when something is “in quotes,” it may not be meant to be taken literally by the reader. Here is an example of this use:

My “favorite” thing to find in the mail is a large bill.

Comma—Commas may be the most commonly used—and commonly misused—form of punctuation. They are needed to separate items in a list, to set apart nonrestrictive phrases and clauses, and to combine clauses. But they are often misused in many places, such as these:

• between a subject and its verb
• trying to hold together two independent clauses (which a comma is not strong enough to do on its own—it must also have a coordinating conjunction there for some support)
• before a dependent clause that comes at the end of a sentence.

For comma-related do’s and don’ts, check out our Comma Page.

Spelling

While spell check has been a lifesaver for many authors, it will not help you on the STAAR test. You must know how to spell a wide variety of words and be able to identify when words are not spelled correctly. Some of this comes from just practicing and reading, but there are also multiple lists out there of commonly misspelled or misused words. You can check out some of them by visiting our English Basics Word Usage study guide.

Spelling questions on the STAAR assessment are often presented as “How should sentence number __ be changed?” Then the answer options are words with slightly different spellings of a certain word and the option to not change anything at all. You may have to determine which answer choice contains a misspelled word from the text and the correct version of that word.