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Common Core ELA3rd GradeWriting

W.3.5: Plan, Revise and Edit with Help

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.5 · Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing.

Get the Paragraph TemplateAll 42 3rd Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 3 here.)

Common Core State Standards, Grade 3, Writing · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What W.3.5 Means in Plain English

Third graders work through a piece in stages: a quick plan, a draft, a partner or teacher conference, a revision that answers the readers’ questions, then editing for the grammar and spelling rules taught so far, like capital letters, quotation marks and past tenses such as ran.

Second graders (W.2.5) revise and edit with help, keeping to one topic. Third grade adds planning before the draft and ties editing to the Language standards up to grade 3. Fourth grade (W.4.5) keeps the same steps and raises the editing to the grade 4 rules.

W.3.5 I Can Statements

  • I can make a quick plan before I start writing.
  • I can revise my draft using my partner’s and teacher’s questions.
  • I can edit for capitals, end marks, spelling and verb tenses.

W.3.5 Worked Example

One smoothie how-to paragraph, before and after a partner conference and an editing pass.

Prompt

Plan, then revise. Your how-to paragraph on making a fruit smoothie went to a partner conference, and your partner asked: “What do I do first? And how do I keep it from splashing out?” Use your numbered plan to revise, then edit with the class checklist: capitals, end marks, spelling.

Not YetYou press the button and blend it until it is smooth first you put in a banana. my little brother drinked the whole cup.This is the draft before the conference. The steps are out of order, the step that keeps the smoothie in the blender is missing, and editing still has to fix a run-on sentence, a lowercase “my” and “drinked.”
Meets the StandardMaking a fruit smoothie takes four easy steps. First, drop a peeled banana, a cup of frozen blueberries and a cup of yogurt into the blender. Next, snap the lid on tight and keep one hand on top, because the lid is what stops the smoothie from splashing out. Then press the button and blend until no lumps are left. Finally, pour it into two cups so you can share. My little brother drank his whole cup in one minute.The writer used the numbered plan to fix the order and added the lid step, which answers both of the partner’s questions. Editing split the run-on, capitalized each sentence and turned “drinked” into “drank,” the irregular past tense from grade 3 grammar.
Moves to Use
Number the steps in a quick plan before drafting.Turn each of your partner’s questions into one change.Add the missing step a reader would need.Edit last with the class checklist, one item at a time.

Common Mistakes with W.3.5

Revising means recopying neatly

The second draft is the first one in neater handwriting, errors and all

Try this: Require one visible change per partner comment, marked with a colored pencil, before any recopying is allowed.

Feedback that names no problem

The partner says “It’s good,” and the writer changes nothing

Try this: Give partners two sentence frames, “I got confused when...” and “I wanted to know...,” so every comment points to something to fix.

Editing for everything at once

One quick reread that catches the misspelled words and nothing else

Try this: Have students reread once per checklist item, capitals first, then end marks, then spelling, checking off each item as they go.

Where W.3.5 Fits

Comes BeforeW.2.5Stick to one topic and improve a draft by revising and editing, with help from adults and classmates.
AlongsideL.3.1The grammar the editing pass checks, including irregular past tenses like ate and ran.L.3.2Capitals, commas, quotation marks and the spelling patterns students edit for.
Comes NextW.4.5The same planning, revising and editing, with editing raised to the grade 4 Language standards.

Practice W.3.5

Rubric GeneratorFree ToolBuild a short rubric for partner conferences, with a row for order, a row for missing steps and a row for capitals and spelling.Peer conferenceOrderConventions
Build a Rubric

Quick Check

  1. What two questions did the partner ask, and which revision answers each?
  2. Which grade 3 grammar error did the editing pass fix?
  3. Why is the plan part of W.3.5, not just the revision?

W.3.5: Other Names

W.3.5CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.5

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.