Students as writers may be asked to do the following tasks as well as continue to be able to do the previously listed forms of writing. (They are in order from least to more complex).
| Kindergarten | Labels |
| Captions | |
| Personal Narrative (story writing) sentence form or dictation | |
| First Grade | Expository (Sentence) |
| Recounts (Narrative-Realistic or Fantasy) | |
| Answers to Questions | |
| Personal Letters, Cards, and Notes | |
| First/Second Grade | Recounts, Rhymes, Retellings |
| Second Grade | Questions to Answers |
| Diaries or Journals | |
| Friendly Letters | |
| Third Grade | Reports |
| Plays, Poems | |
| Book Reviews and Reports | |
| Biographies and Autobiographies | |
| Third/Fourth Grade | Posters and Brochures |
| Tall Tales, Comics, Poetry | |
| Directions/Procedural (to a location etc) | |
| Fourth Grade | Newspaper and Magazine Articles |
| Summaries | |
| Letters to the Editor | |
| Expository Essays | |
| Narrative Essays | |
| Fourth/Fifth Grade | Business Letters to Thank, Request, Complain, Explain |
| Fifth Grade | Narrative-Historical Fiction, Science Fiction |
| Editorials, Memos | |
| Interviews, | |
| Formal Essays |
(Adapted from the Oregon Department of education Spring 1991)
Narrative: recounts a personal experience based on something which really happened (or might really have happened). All details work together in an integrated way to create a complete story with beginning, middle, and end.
Expository: gives information, explains something, clarifies, or defines. The writing teaches, reveals, informs, or entertains the reader's understanding through a carefully crafted mix of key points and critical support.
Persuasive: attempts to convince the reader that a point of view is valid or to persuade the reader to take a specific action. It is based on a topic that is limited in scope, and that is debatable-a topic about which there could be more than one point of view. Persuasive differs from expository writing in that it does more than explain; it also takes a stand and tries to persuade the reader to take that same stand.
Literary Analysis/Book Reports: a personal response to literature, may be formal or informal depending on the assignment.
Business: write for a particular audience in a given format.
Descriptive/Sensory: presents an object, feelings, a place, or a person in a way that creates a vivid impression in the reader's mind, enabling the reader to readily picture what the writer is talking about.
Imaginative: invents a situation or story based on the writer's imagination. The writer may create a scene, situation or character, may predict what might happen under hypothetical circumstances, or use his/her creativity to solve a hypothetical problem.