Students spend grades K-2/3 learning to form letters, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.  Teachers model the writing process for students and spend time analyzing authors' writing styles as they read out loud to students.  Students spend time learning about the six traits +1 (presentation), which include

• Ideas—the main message
• Organization—the internal structure of the piece
• Voice—the personal tone and flavor of the author's message
• Word Choice—the vocabulary a writer chooses to convey meaning
• Sentence Fluency—the rhythm and flow of the language
• Conventions—the mechanical correctness
• Presentation—how the writing actually looks on the page

In grades 3/4-12, students write to express new learning with four different overlapping styles of writing:

        1.  Narrative
        2.  Descriptive (not part of AzMERIT)
        3.  Expository
        4.  Opinion (K-5)/Argumentative (6-12)

Writing skills develop over time, scaffolding up from learning to write to writing to learn (or share learning).  

Writing skills develop over a period of several years.  The Washington State Department of Education brought together writing gurus to develop a document that outlines how writing progresses from kindergarten through tenth grade (the years that follow allow students to further hone the culmination of learned skills).  The following documents illustrate the ideas generated by this think tank:

• Progression of forms/genres
• Kindergarten
• First Grade
• Second Grade
• Third Grade
• Fourth Grade
• Fifth Grade
• Sixth Grade
• Seventh Grade
• Eighth Grade
• Ninth/Tenth Grade

Cited from Washington State’s Essential Academic Learning Requirements.