What it is. Correctness is the layer of an essay that has right answers — so it is dealt with first and got out of the way.
Why our test works. Essay Voyage opens with correctness for a reason that children find counter-intuitive: it is the least important layer and it goes first, because it is the only one with definite answers. A writer worrying about a comma cannot judge their own argument. The test teaches the distinction that runs through the whole book — checkable versus judgeable — and every later chapter depends on it.
Leans on. The editing checklist has run since Grade 3. This names why it is first.
Watch for. A class that thinks correctness is the most important layer has taken the opposite lesson. It is first because it is easiest, not because it matters most.
Read and use Correctness from Essay Voyage, pp.1–5. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Correctness aloud with the book open and models the move The class reads Writing Book 6, p.46 — 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. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U1 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of Correctness aloud with the book open and models the move it teaches on one sentence. 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 applies the move from Correctness to two sentences together, checking against the book's own example. 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 6 to page 46 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: In your notebook: apply Correctness to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Correctness. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Fix what can be checked before judging what cannot.
A class that thinks correctness is the most important layer has taken the opposite lesson. It is first because it is easiest, not because it matters most.