If students have nothing to say on a topic, their writing will reflect that. In effect, Common Core and State standards recognize and assess the value of determining and defining ideas about which students will write. Discussion is key. Common core advises that teachers "engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one and in groups) on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly." This includes speaking in turn, listening to input, asking clarifying questions and explaining how the student understands the idea.
Common Core standards require that students compose informative and explanatory texts using facts, definitions and details. To achieve this, Common Core includes short research projects that build student knowledge about a topic. Both Common Core and extended standards encourage students to integrate "print and digital sources" (including audio recordings, images and photos) into research. Assessment standards stress the need for teacher input and assistance to help third grade students develop topic writing appropriate to the task.
The writing process for third graders focuses partly on grammar. Students must demonstrate familiarity and understanding of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Criteria for the extended core of English Language Arts (ELA) require students to utilize all lower-case letters of the alphabet and appropriately deploy past and present verb tenses. Also, student assessment is based on the use of simple, compound and complex sentences.
Vocabulary and meaning strategies for third graders in North Carolina include contextual reading, dictionary use and glossaries for key words or phrases. State criteria also call on third grade students to demonstrate a literal and non-literal grasp of words, as well learn the relationships between conversational and academic vocabulary.
The Common Core national standard advises that students "write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences." Students satisfy this criteria by establishing setting, introducing a story's narrator and organizing a story whose sequence of events unfolds naturally. Sequences are composed of thoughts, feelings and actions produced by characters in dialogue with each other.