6 Traits

Ideas

• Your car needs an engine to run, just like you need ideas to write. Without a working engine, you can’t even get your car started.

Organization

• When you drive your car, you have a beginning point, the journey, and an ending destination. Your writing needs to be organized in a logical way with a beginning, middle and end too.
• 1 Topic Sentence, 3 details, 1 summary sentence=5 Sentences

Voice

• Voice helps us know the writer. Voice is expressed through words, phrases, punctuation and clearly expressed feelings.

Word Choice

• Using the right word choice steers the reader in the direction you want to take them. Your readers should feel speed and energy while riding in a sports car, but will probably feel a bit more laid back while riding in the minivan.

Sentence Fluency

• Varying sentence length and type can speed up or slow down the reader. -Sentences should begin in a variety of ways. Sentences are complete with a subject and a predicate. Your writing should be easy to read aloud with expression.

Conventions

• Handwriting or digital production should be fluent and legible. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are used correctly. New paragraphs introduce a topic change. “To keep our writing running smoothly, we need to maintain it with proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.”