Blurb:

This chapter presents genre analyses of sample writings featured in Appendix C of the widely-adopted K-12 Common Core State Standards. Our chapter will examine how student writing samples fulfill the genre expectations detailed by genre research in SFL. We examine two eighth grade texts: one informative\explanatory and one narrative as classified by CCSS. We then present a detailed Appraisal analysis as shown by the student language choices. We compare our analysis to the annotations provided by the CCSS of those same texts. Our findings showed that students used various Appraisal resources to construct evaluative meaning appropriate to the genres shown within the CCSS exemplars. As a result of our comparison, we propose how K-12 teachers may utilize aspects of the genre approach to scaffold learning in the teaching of the CCSS text types and provide resources to more effectively teach students.