What it is. The system is mastered when a page still serves you a week later without the source.
Why our test works. Grade 5 is the endpoint of the note-taking progression, so the check has to be the real one — not whether the page looks right today but whether it WORKS later. Come back to it in a week and ask; anything else is a guess.
Leans on. Lessons 1-4; and Grades 3-4.
Watch for. This is the mastery check for the whole system. Record who passes — they will not be re-taught, and the ones who fail need the cycle again.
Produce a complete hierarchical page unassisted — the Grade 5 endpoint. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher names the standard and shows the exemplar without building it. The class reads Writing Book 5, p.44 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher names the standard and shows the exemplar without building it. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class states the checklist from memory. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 5 to page 44 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Complete a full page from a passage, unassisted, and self-check against the standard.
You close on the exit direction — Submit with your own check marks on each feature. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: If it works next week, it worked.
This is the mastery check for the whole system. Record who passes — they will not be re-taught, and the ones who fail need the cycle again.