Breaking News: Grammar Cats Aligned to the Common Core!

The GrammarCatz are clearly struggling with some persistent problems in their written English. If only the Common Core had been in place when they were kittens! Below is a list of some of the standards that the cats are failing to meet. And yes, for anybody who thinks this is a completely illogical, unstructured, and arbitrary hodgepodge of random elements, you are . . . CORRECT!

Nouns and Verbs

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.1d
Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns (e.g., I, me, my; they, them, their, anyone, everything).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1b
Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1d
Form and use regular and irregular verbs.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1f
Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Other Parts of Speech

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.1h
Use determiners (e.g., articles, demonstratives).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1e
Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1g
Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Punctuation and Capitalization

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.2b
Use end punctuation for sentences.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.2c
Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2c
Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.1f
Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments and run-ons.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.2a
Use correct capitalization.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.2c
Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.2b
Use a comma to separate an introductory element from the rest of the sentence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.2c
Use a comma to set off the words yes and no (e.g., Yes, thank you), to set off a tag question from the rest of the sentence (e.g., It’s true, isn’t it?), and to indicate direct address (e.g., Is that you, Steve?).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.2a
Use punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes) to set off nonrestrictive/parenthetical elements.

Spelling and Usage

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.1g
Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., to, too, two; there, their).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.2b
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.2b
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.2c
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.2c
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.2b
Spell correctly.

Meanwhile, you have to give the cats credit for meeting and exceeding this important standard for fourth grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.3b. Choose punctuation for effect.

And in case you had not figured out how I really feel about the Common Core:

(image source)