Within a type of communication, the writer, speaker, or designer chooses a form based on the purpose of the piece. Common written forms include narratives; journals; procedural, expository, and explanatory documents; news articles; e-mails; blogs; advertisements; poetry; novels; and letters.

literary or thematic categories (e.g., science fiction, biography, satire, memoir, poem, visual essay, personal narrative, speech, oral history)

stylistic choices that make a specific writer distinguishable from others, including diction, vocabulary, sentence structure, and tone

avoiding common usage errors (e.g., double negatives, mixed metaphors, malapropisms, and word misuse)

common practices of standard punctuation in capitalization, quoting, and spelling of Canadian and First Peoples words

formal acknowledgements of another person’s work, idea, or intellectual property

Texts use various literary devices, including figurative language, according to purpose and audience.

In addition to using all the established elements and devices associated with other written, spoken, and representational forms of expression, new media works have unique stylistic features (e.g., site architecture, web page layout and design, interactivity, streamed and rendered content) that contribute to appeal, ease of use, and ability to present sophisticated material.

There are many strategies that readers use when making sense of text. Students consider what strategies they need to use to “unpack” text. They employ strategies with increasing independence depending on the purpose, text, and context. Strategies include but may not be limited to predicting, inferring, questioning, paraphrasing, using context clues, using text features, visualizing, making connections, summarizing, identifying big ideas, synthesizing, and reflecting.

There are various writing processes depending on context. These may include determining audience and purpose, generating or gathering ideas, free-writing, making notes, drafting, revising, and/or editing. Writers often have very personalized processes when writing. Writing is an iterative process.

speaking with expression, connecting with listeners, asking questions to clarify, listening for specifics, summarizing, paraphrasing

attributes or elements of the text that may include typography (bold, italics, underlining, font choice), guide words, key words, titles, diagrams, captions, labels, maps, charts, illustrations, tables, photographs, and sidebars/text boxes

how text is organized

for example, circular, iterative, cyclical

the intended purpose of a text

the process of two or more people working together and influencing each other, including the ability of a user to interact with the digital media, or with a computer to respond to user input

Stories often have protocols for when and where they can be shared, who owns them, and who can share them.

Oral traditions are the The means by which cultural transmission occurs over generations, other than through written records. Among First Peoples, oral traditions may consist of told stories, songs and/or other types of distilled wisdom or information, often complemented by dance or various forms of visual representation such as carvings or masks. In addition to expressing spiritual and emotional truth (e.g., via symbol and metaphor), these traditions provide a record of literal truth (e.g., regarding events and/or situations). They were integrated into every facet of life and were the basis of First Peoples education systems. They continue to endure in contemporary contexts.

the movement to heal the relationship between First Peoples and Canada that was damaged by colonial policies such as the Indian residential school system