Writing Benchmarks and Anchor Papers - Third Grade:SPRING

All descriptors must be evident.

Writing Characteristics

  • Maintains focus on a topic.
  • Contains most high frequency words spelled correctly.
  • Contains a variety of sentence structures and length.
  • Transitional words and phrases are incorporated.
  • Contains rich and descriptive written vocabulary.

Writer Behaviors

  • Identifies and begins to use leads.
  • Organizes writing into appropriate paragraphs.
  • Uses periods and other end punctuation marks most of the time.
  • Uses advanced print conventions appropriately (quotation marks, commas, apostrophes, exclamation marks, contractions, possessives) though they may still be inconsistent.
  • Uses conventional spelling and rules to include inflectional endings, plurals, and verb tenses.