Smiley Face Tricks
• What exactly are
Smiley Face
tricks???
• Well, they are tricks that will help you to become
more advanced writers. They work, they really
do!!!! You will need to
use these tricks throughout the
year in all of your writing so
listen up!!!
MAGIC THREE:
• Three verbs in a series, separated by commas
that create a poetic rhythm or add support for a
point, especially when the items have their own
modifiers.
• “In those woods, I would spend hours 1listening
to the wind rustle the leaves, 2climbing the trees,
and 3giving the occasional wild growl to scare
away any pink-flowered girls who might be riding
their bikes too close to my secret entrance.”
Let’s Practice the Magic 3
• Choose one thing that you did
over the weekend that was fun or
interesting. Using the magic 3, go
ahead and write a paragraph
describing this time. Be creative!!
REPETITION FOR EFFECT
• When an author/writer purposely repeats a
word or words to emphasize its importance.
• “The veranda is your only shelter away from the
sister in bed asleep, away from the brother that
plays in the tree house in the field, away from
your chores that await you.” (Leslie)
Hyphenated Modifiers
• HYPHENATED MODIFIERS
• When you connect two adjectives or adverbs
together with a hyphen, it lends an air of
originality and sophistication to your writing.
– Example
– “She’s got this blond hair, with dark highlights, parted
in the middle, down past her shoulders, and straight
as a ruler. She’s got big green eyes that all guys admire
and all girls envy, and this I’m-so-beautiful-and-Iknow-it smile, you know, like every other super
model.” (Ilena)
EXPANDED MOMENT
• When an author/writer takes a moment that you would ordinarily
speed past, and develops it fully to make the reader take notice.
•
• “But no, I had to go to school. And as I said before, I had to listen
to my math teacher preach about numbers and letters and
figures…I was tired of hearing her annoying voice lecture about
‘a=b divided by x.’ I glared at the small black hands on the clock,
silently threatening them to go faster. But they didn’t listen, I
caught myself wishing I were on white sand and looking down at
almost transparent pale-blue water with my best friend at my
side…I don’t belong in some dull math class. I belong on the
beach, where I can soak my feet in caressing water and let the
wind wander its way through my chestnut-colored hair and sip Dr.
Pepper all day long. “(Sue)
•
•
SPECIFIC DETAILS FOR EFFECT
•
Add specific details with
vivid and specific
information to your writing
to clarify and create word
pictures. Use sensory details
to help the reader visualize
the person, place, thing, or
idea that you are describing.
Example of Specific Details
• “The leaves danced as we started up the tinted blue
walkway, on that cool October morning. Mays Landing
was usually warmer on the twentieth, but today was
different, I had been born. Today was the day I had
come into this world, and it was a big world for such a
little person. I was a peculiar toddler, in a good way
though. I was steadily tottering around the house at
only eight months, and speaking in full sentences by
two. I adored life and everyone in it, like when the sun
gently sets in the summer evenings and glazes the
mammoth pine trees that surrounded our house, I
knew this was the beginning of something special.”
(Alyssa Grade 6)
• Non-literal comparisons add “spice” to writing
and can help paint a more vivid picture for the
reader. Include examples of similes,
metaphors, hyperbole, onomatopoeia,
personification, symbolism, irony,
alliteration, assonance, etc.
– Example
– “When we first moved into the house on First Street, I
didn’t like it. My room was hot, cramped, and stuffy
as a train in the middle of the Sahara. “ (Teri, grade 7)
HUMOR
• HUMOR:
– Whenever possible and appropriate, inject a little
humor to keep your reader awake.
– “There I was on the first day of school, in my brand
new outfit that I had begged mom to buy for me. For
once, I was having a great day, and I was strutting in
my new shoes with a heart filled of glee. Little did I
know that I was trailing a three yard train of toilet
paper that was stuck to the bottom of my shoe! So
much for strutting in my new shoes.” (Andrew6.