1. 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!!!

2. 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 1 listening to the wind rustle the leaves, 2 climbing the trees, and 3 giving the occasional wild growl to scare away any pink-flowered girls who might be riding their bikes too close to my secret entrance.”

3. 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!!

4. 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)

5. 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-I- know-it smile, you know, like every other super model.” (Ilena)

6. 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)

7. 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.

8. 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)

9. 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)

10. 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.