What it is. Proofreaders' marks are a common notation for saying what to change.
Why our test works. This is the shortest section in the book and the highest-return one, because it makes every future correction faster for both sides. It is also a genuine instance of something children rarely meet: a NOTATION, agreed in advance, that carries meaning without prose — the same idea as the mathematical symbols they already accept without question.
Leans on. Grades 3-7 marked corrections in prose. This is faster.
Watch for. Use them from this lesson onward or they will be forgotten in a week. The lesson is worthless without the adoption.
Read and use Standard Proofreaders' Marks from Advanced Academic Writing, pp.5–5. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Standard Proofreaders' Marks aloud with the book open and The class reads Writing Book 8, p.55 — 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 U8 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 Standard Proofreaders' Marks 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 Standard Proofreaders' Marks 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 8 to page 55 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 Standard Proofreaders' Marks to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Standard Proofreaders' Marks. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: A shared set of marks means a correction needs no explanation.
Use them from this lesson onward or they will be forgotten in a week. The lesson is worthless without the adoption.