During the first quarter, students have learned about dead words (and how to replace them), transitions, sentence revision, sensory details, hooking the reader, and conclusion. We have practiced and perfected our writing using something new called Board Language, which is a 10 minute skill practice/review that includes nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentence revision, and figurative language. Students have also been introduced to quick writes. Students are given a topic or sentence stem, then allowed one minute to think and organize what they want to say. This is followed by three minutes to write. Students score themselves on hook (topic sentence), transitions, word count, and conclusion. Furthermore, students were introduced to progressive writing, in which they begin a story, then pass to one other person. Person two continues the story, before passing to a third person, who is responsible for the conclusion. The paper is then returned to the owner, who works with revision and editing of the piece.