The Six traits of Writing
Dominic Jiacinto
Ideas
- Good writing has a clear message, focus, or purpose. The writing holds oodles of specific ideas and details.
- Pick a topic that you like, and fits your assignment.
- Put facts, statistics and thoughts in the writing.
Organization
- Excellent writing has a clear beginning, middle, and end
- The overall writing is easy to follow
- Topic sentence-green
- Main idea-yellow
- detail-red
- Conclusion-green
Voice
- Great writing shows the author's voice-his or her unique way of saying things
- Write in an engaging way that keeps the reader wanting more
- Show, don't tell
Six Traits of Writing - Voice
Word Coice
- Use specific nouns, creative verbs, and well chosen modifiers
- Use precise nouns and verbs
- Use exciting adjectives/adverbs
Sentence Fluency
- Use lots of different sentence styles that flow smoothly from one idea to the next
- Combine short, choppy sentences into long, smooth ones
- use a variety of sentence lengths
- use complex and compound sentences
Conventions
- Excellent writing has been carefully edited to make sure it's easy to understand
- The writing follows the rules for grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Use evaluation sheet to revise
- Edit with C.O.P.S. (not police)
Writing Process
Brainstorming/Prewriting
- Choose a topic that you like, and start thinking up ideas
- Only write stuff down if it's on a T table or some other graphic organizer
Writing
- This is where the author actually writes the book, magazine, paragraph, etc.
- Don't edit and revise yet, because those are other steps
Evaluation
- This is just when an author looks over he/she's work and sees if anything's wrong
- Evaluating is NOT part of revising or editing (it should be though)
Revision
- Revising is when the person writing takes away any unneeded parts or adds on to it to perfect their writing
- This doesn't include grammar mistakes like spelling or capitals
Editing
- Editing is when the writer corrects any bad grammar like spelling or capitals
Publishing
- This is when the writer gets their book released, or when a student turns in an assignment
- Publishing is just another way of saying: getting done
Write Tools
T. table
- A T. table is a very effective way to organize thoughts for a paragraph
- It organizes them into four groups: the topic, main ideas, details or tell me mores, and the conclusion
Core Four Topic Sentences
- The core Four topic sentences are: simple statements, number statements, situation/stance, and questions
- Simple statements explain the topic in a very basic way, for example: Football is very fun.
- A number statement is just a simple one with a number word somewhere in it
- Situation/stance is a simple statement conjoined with another sentence that tells about it
- A question is a simple statement, except it's a question not a statement
Transitions
- Transitions are words that make the writing sound smoother by being paced where they keep the writing from just jumping from one main idea to another
Main ideas (yellow)
- Main ideas are like little, more specific topics.
- The topic is to broad to just add details, so main ideas explain the topic more to narrow it down
Details/Tell Me More (red)
- These are the really fine, specific details
- The tell-me-mores need to come right after the main ideas
Conclusion Sentences (green)
- This is the end of the paragraph.
- Don't just write the end but think of something creative and unique