Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 9-10, Writing: History, Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What WHST.9-10.5 Means in Plain English
Ninth and tenth graders plan, revise, edit and sometimes start over on a history essay or lab report, fixing the biggest problem first. A lab conclusion that claims more than its data shows gets rewritten before anyone corrects a comma or swaps a word.
Grades 6 to 8 (WHST.6-8.5) revise with guidance and support from peers and adults, checking how well purpose and audience are served. Grades 9 to 10 drop the support clause and ask writers to rank their own problems by significance. Grades 11 to 12 (WHST.11-12.5) keep identical wording.
WHST.9-10.5 I Can Statements
I can find the most significant problem in my draft.
I can fix a claim the evidence cannot support before editing.
I can start over with a new approach when a draft fails.
WHST.9-10.5 Worked Example
Both revisions began from the same draft and the same teacher note; only one fixed the problem the note was pointing at.
Prompt
Physics. Revise the conclusion of your paper helicopter lab report. Your group dropped helicopters with wings of 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 cm from 2.5 meters, five drops each. Average fall times: 1.1, 1.5, 1.9, 2.2 and 1.4 seconds. At 12 cm the paper wings bent, and the helicopter tumbled on four of five drops. Your draft conclusion: “Our hypothesis was correct, longer wings always make the helicopter fall slower. This is because of air resistence. The experament was very sucessful.” Your teacher’s note: “Check this against your own table.”
Not YetOur hypothesis was correct: longer wings always make the helicopter fall more slowly. This is because of air resistance acting on the wings. The experiment was very successful, and our data was very accurate.Every spelling error is fixed and the comma splice is now a colon, but the most significant problem survives: the claim still says “always,” and the 12 cm helicopter fell faster than the 6 cm one. Editing a false conclusion only makes it a cleaner false conclusion, and “very accurate” claims even more.
Meets the StandardOur hypothesis was only partly supported. Fall time rose steadily with wing length from 4 cm to 10 cm, from an average of 1.1 seconds to 2.2 seconds, because longer wings sweep a larger area and meet more air resistance as the helicopter spins. At 12 cm the pattern broke: the average dropped to 1.4 seconds, and on four of five drops the paper wings bent and the helicopter tumbled instead of spinning. A wing that bends cannot hold its angle, so it no longer turns the fall into a steady spin. Our data supports a narrower claim: longer wings slow the fall only while the paper is stiff enough to keep its shape. A next trial could test 12 cm wings cut from card stock to see whether stiffer wings restore the trend.The writer revised for significance first: the false “always” became a claim the table supports, and the 12 cm result, the evidence the draft ignored, is now explained instead of hidden. Only then did editing matter, and the spelling is fixed along the way. The closing trial is a new approach the writer could not have proposed while the conclusion still called the hypothesis correct.
Moves to Use
Reread the draft against your own data before reading for errors.List every problem, then rank them by what would most mislead the reader.Rewrite the claim to match the evidence, including the result that breaks the pattern.Edit spelling and punctuation last, once the content is right.
Common Mistakes with WHST.9-10.5
Polishing the wrong draft
A conclusion with every word spelled right that still claims “always” against the data
Try this: Have students check the draft’s main claim against their data table before they are allowed to fix a single spelling error.
Hiding the result that does not fit
The 12 cm trial left off the graph because it “didn’t match”
Try this: Require one sentence in every conclusion that names the result that broke the pattern and offers a possible cause.
Revision as adding words
“The experiment was very, very successful and our results were extremely accurate.”
Try this: Ask students to cut one sentence from every paragraph during revision and explain what the paragraph gained by losing it.