Writing Modes | ELA Exercise for Improving Student Writing Skills | Grades 8-10

What is a mode of writing? A mode of writing is the dominant way a passage delivers its meaning: how it’s presenting information. In a four-mode framework, students look for whether the writer is mainly:

• Narrating (telling events in time)
• Describing (painting a picture with sensory detail)
• Using dialogue (showing characters speaking)
• Expositing (explaining ideas, facts, concepts)

Most real texts blend all four modes. But identifying a chunk of text’s Mode refers to how a writer presents information through narration, description, dialogue, or exposition. However, recognizing a chunk of text’s mode is a skill used in writer’s workshop in the middle and high school English Language Arts classroom. The skill is naming the primary mode in a paragraph/section and proving it with evidence (a craft move, a signal word, a sentence type, punctuation, etc.).

Share the resource with adolescent learners; you can also include it as part of a print or digital writing resource packet, post it on Google Classroom or any Learning Management System, or use it as a quick formative assessment when implementing a writing project.

Note: this resource includes both a printable and a digital version (PDF & Google Workspace).

The Resource Comes Packaged with the Following Features:

• Teacher instructions: how to teach and identify mode
• “Identifying Mode” handout + skills activity
• Examples of all four modes (narration, description, dialogue, exposition)
• One formative writing/labeling exercise
• One adaptable and quick formative assessment to identify mode in any passage.
• One Exit Ticket
• Teacher answer key

I recommend using these these resources in a Middle or High school English Language Arts classroom.

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