Gallery Walk of Quotes

Tour the quotes, then stand by the one that resonates with you!

The 6+1 Traits of Writing: PrimaryIdeas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions,

and Presentation

Herb Budden

Co-director, Indiana Teachers of Writing (ITW) Writing Project, as site of the

National Writing Project

http://itwwp.org

http://centergrove.wikispaces.com 3

Norms

What do you need in order to get work done?

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Workshop Format / Goals for Examining the Traits

1. Example/student sample emphasizing Trait under discussion

2. Identifying Key Features of the Trait

3. Scoring Practice/mine & yours…

4. Focus Lesson with a Picture Book

After the Activities for each Trait:

• Read, Reflect on how you might use the teaching suggestions

• Keep a running tally of strategies you like

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We must change from a model that picks winners to one

that will create winners.

―Harold HodgkinsonMichigan: The State and Its Educational System

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TtThree Levels of Assessment

•Large scale, Formal Assessment•Classroom Assessment•Personal Assessment

What are the differences? Which has the greatest impact?

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“Unless student self-assessement is firmly entrenched as a major goal of our writing curriculum, all other assessments will pale both in importance and impact. This is so because ONLY self-assessment gives students an internal compass to guide their development as writers. They must know whether their work is good not because we tell them or a state test tells them but because they can judge their performance for themselves. “ V. Spandel (2004) Creating Young Writers, p. 206

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Classroom Assessment is next in importance.

Why? It should take into account both process and product, and can look at students’ performance OVER TIME and across various forms of writing.

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A Blend of Personal and Classroom Assessment can create the basis of a good writing workshop: HOW?

•Students keep writing portfolios and are taught rubrics•Teachers observe and record over time the answers to these important questions: Does the student:

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•Have strategies (conversing, sketching, listing) to draw on for prewriting?•Try new things?•Borrow ideas from print or others?•Come up with personally important topics?•Show a willingness to try new forms of writing?•Extend individual pieces through detail?•Imitate favorite books, poems?•Choose books for herself?•Listen with expectation & appreciation to both professional writing and the writing of peers?•See herself as a writer and reader?

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Note there’s no mention of the 6 Traits here-- at Primary level, the traits are “a reminder so that in our comments to student writers we can be not only encouraging but also precise about the skills and accomplishments we see. Then, we teach students to see those things in their writing, too.”

The 6+1 Traits of Writing Are NOT:

• A writing curriculum – they have no scope and sequence

• A simple answer to a complex issue: How to teach writing well

• About worksheets or out-of-context practice: They are about critical thinking

• Meant to be learned in a 1-2 hour workshop: Quality staff development happens over time (5-7 years)

• Going away: Twenty years and counting!

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The 6+1 Traits of Writing ARE:

• A common language to talk about writing: This is a new thing for many teachers

• A shared vision of what “good” looks like in all forms of writing: Setting clear targets for success

• An assessment tool for teachers and students: The strength of the model

• A model for use in a writing process classroom: Traits are what we do when we revise and edit

• Here to stay: Twenty years and counting

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Ideas: the meaning and development of the message

Organization: the internal structure of the piece

Voice: the tone of the piece—the personal stamp that the writer brings to it

The 6+1 Traits of Writing

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• Word Choice: the specific vocabulary the writer uses to convey meaning

• Sentence Fluency: the way the words and phrases flow throughout the text

• Conventions: the mechanical correctness of the piece

• Presentation: the overall appearance of the work

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6+1 Traits and the Writing Process

• Prewrite: Discover what you want to say (Ideas, Organization, Voice) (mode and genre)

• Draft: Get it down (Sentence Fluency)

• Share/Feedback: Find out what worked and what needs work (for one or more traits or the piece as a whole)

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• Revise: Rework the text to make it clear (Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency)

• Edit: Make the text readable (Conventions: spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and paragraphing)

• Finish: Polish the final appearance (Presentation)

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What Is Revision?Revise: to change the text to

make it clear, focusing on…• ideas•organization•voice•word choice•sentence fluency

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The Shell Game

An activitiy to show the value of revising

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What is editing?Editing: to edit the text for conventions of

Standard English• spelling• punctuation• capitalization• grammar• paragraphing

Presentation: The appearance and neatness of the work

MORE ON THIS TRAIT LATER!23

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Text Rendering Activity

• Read pp. 8-16 in Culham

• Sentence

• Phrase

• Word

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Tasha’s Letter—A Traditional Look

• Spelling inaccurate

• Punctuation arbitrary—and confusing

• Words are omitted

• It’s short

• Difficult to read

• Doesn’t say much

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But do traditional expectations reveal a true picture of Tasha’s

writing?

Not really…

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What if we put content, voice and purpose before…

conventions?

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What if we ask “What is Tasha noticing about the print that fills her world? What is she

borrowing?

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Tasha recognizes the power of print:

• as a way to communicate

• as one appropriate form…the letter.

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She shows us: • a traditional letter format• left-right, up-down orientation of words• spaces between words• that she can capture the sounds of

language• that she’s aware of names• that she is beginning to understand

periods and commas• her message is direct, purposeful, and

understandable

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The Scoring Guide (Rubric)

• Individual bullets support accurate and reliable assessment

• The bullets are the basis of the written and or verbal comments by the teacher or peers.

• Each bullet can be a focus lesson for instruction in writing workshop.

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Why a 5-Point Scale?• Origin of and research on the trait

model is 5 points• Analytic, not holistic• Classroom assessment, not large scale• Are we ranking and sorting?

(summative) Or leading students to revise and edit? (formative)

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The key to assessment is the word itself. It comes from the Latin verb assidire: to sit beside.

We are not ranking here. We are sitting beside a piece of writing and observing its qualities. We are finding a common language to talk about these qualities.

~ Barry Lane

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Time for Traits

Ideas, Organization, Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Sentence Fluency,

Conventions,Conventions, and Presentationand Presentation

IDEAS & CONTENT

Examine Primary Rubric to identify key qualities of IDEAS trait

(What to look for in PICTURES?

TEXT? What to say in your comments?)

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Ideas

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Possible I/C Comments

• This idea is crystal clear.

• The way you drew this helps me make a picture in my mind. It’s a clever idea.

• Thanks for writing this down so I can see what you think.

• See p. 46 ff in “Seeing…”

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Some Key Qualities of the Ideas Trait• Young writers convey ideas by:

– drawing pictures with bold lines and color– experimentiing with letters and words– captioning pictures they create/gather– talking about what happened to

them/characters– asking questions and making lists– noticing significance in little things/events

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Tips on Scoring• Use the complete scoring guide – not a

shortened version (but keep the student-friendly version in mind!)

• Read the scoring guide at the “5” level as a definition of the trait

• Read the paper• Ask yourself, “Generally stronger or weaker

on this trait?” • Work from the “5” down, or the “1” up• Use the full range of scores – “5” is not

perfect and “1” is not an “F”

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Using the Culham book:

• Try to score the papers WITHOUT looking at the “answers,” which usually follow on the page opposite. (Use some paper to mask the page!)

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Commenting:

• think of one specific comment you can say or write to the student to explain the score and help the student know what to do to make the paper stronger on the next draft

• Share with your group

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Teaching the Ideas Trait

3 KEYS to this Trait for Primary students:– Ideas as imagination and observation– Ideas as pictures in the mind– Ideas as messages between people

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2. Use the Student Friendly Scoring Guide p. 99

• When they are developmentally ready, give them copies, discuss, and have them use it to assess their own and sample writing.

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3. Teaching IDEAS: ANY activity that allows students to practice:

• Prewriting• Generating ideas from thought/experience• Borrowing ideas from other writers• Keeping writer’s notebooks• Knowing the purpose for writing• Moving from broad to focused theme• Learning to observe carefully, asking questions• Developing thinking skills (comparison, analysis,

inference)

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4. A Warm Up Activity for IDEAS: Finding the Right Topic & Making

the Content Clear

• A bottle of water: Questions, anyone?

“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.” --Samuel Johnson

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5. Teaching Ideas: Selecting Interesting, Relevant Details

• I’m making dinner…

(fancy word for this: Taxonomy Chart!)

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6. Ideas Focus Lesson with a Picture Book:

• All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan

• Wilfrid Gordon Macdonald Partridge by Mem Fox

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1.Read, Reflect, Apply

• Examine pp. 82-99 in Culham

• Discuss in small group

• Fill out “Strategies to Try” sheet

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