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6+1 TRAITS of WRITING



All children can and do write, the need to communicate with others is a natural thing. As a school district we need to teach how to do it well and with a purpose. We are taking the mystery out of what the teacher expects and what makes writing good. The Six Traits help teach students the characteristics or qualities in effective writing; the student is expected to become a critical reader and writer. Traits or characteristics of good writing have been around for a long time. The Six Traits help teachers and students use a common language to identify these areas of strength or weakness in writing. Six trait writing is based on the premise that students who become strong self-assessors become better writers and revisers.
The six traits focus on:
  • IDEAS: the meaning and development of the message
  • ORGANIZATION: the structure of the piece
  • VOICE: the way the writer brings the topic to life
  • 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 (spelling, punctuation, capitalization)
  • PRESENTATION: the overall appearance of the work

The Hudson School District trained the elementary staff in the Six Traits program prior to the school year beginning. We will have consistency of terminology and program through the elementary level. A big part of this program is student time on task, practicing writing focusing on the traits. Students will have many opportunities to write for many purposes. As your child brings home writing to share with you, please know that we are working on conventions all the time. Not every piece will have perfect spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Your child will be learning about each of these important editing areas on at a time, and you will see their ability to handle these skills grow over time. One of the best things you can do is show what they have done well on their writing, not just what is still wrong.

We have handouts relating to the Six Traits that we believe will give you a greater understanding. In addition to our links we have a writing cubric shared below.

Handouts

6 Traits Rubric

John Collins Writing Program

The Collins Writing Program was designed to simultaneously improve students' thinking and writing skills. The unique program develops thinking skills through five types of writing assignments and can be easily used in any content area. Collins Writing is based on two essential principles: 1. thinking and writing skills develop with experience and practice, and 2. it is almost impossible to be both a creative thinker (generating new ideas) and a critical thinker (evaluating existing ideas) at the same time. Our goal is to give teachers, schools, and districts a unified program that can be used in all classrooms and in all subject areas from grades K-12. To achieve this goal, the program provides techniques that require the student to be the intellectual worker in the room. Collins Writing Program is a challenging, demanding program for students — not for teachers.

PROGRAM RATIONALE
Writing is the most difficult activity we ask students to do and the stakes for improving writing skills continue to escalate. State and national performance assessments increasingly require written responses from students that explain thinking processes — in all content areas. The Collins Writing Program will enable students to become comfortable thinking and writing, to develop the essential writing skills they need for future academic success, and to perform well on state and national assessments.

COLLINS WRITING MODEL
The Collins Writing Program presents a model for writing-across-the-curriculum. At its very core is the belief that writing enhances the learning process of any subject at any level. To help teachers encourage students to think and write, we have developed a proprietary model for a writing-to-learn, writing-across-the-curriculum program that defines and utilizes five types of writing assignments and the outcomes expected for each. These five types of writing provide the overall framework for the program. For each writing type the program establishes clear expectations and outcomes and provides extensive, practical strategies for students to employ. The Cumulative Writing Folder keeps track of the proficiencies each student demonstrates for each type of writing.

Handouts
1 – 5 FOCUS CORRECTION AREAS - Nottingham West Elementary School

Writer’s Workshop

Pre-Writing
1. Analyzing the writing assignment: Before planning the paper, you must know for whom you are writing, what the length should be and what the conventions of the subject matter, style and organization are—all of which are based on the situation.

2. Choosing a topic: You must begin by finding a topic that you find interesting. Being excited about your topic will help motivate you to a more thorough exploration of the subject as well as keep your audience interested. The topic needs to be large enough to have a number of resources as well as limited to a defined thesis.

3. Examining prior knowledge: You must now determine what information you already know about the topic and what information you will need to find before beginning writing. This step is when you may try to write an informal outline to determine the gaps in your knowledge.

4. Gathering Information/Researching: Now you may begin finding information. For some forms of papers, the information may simply be from memory or from a single text. For more in-depth research papers, you may need to consult books, magazines, other people or personal experiments.

5. Organizing the paper: You may do this step formally or informally; you may write out notes in a formal outline or organize them in your head. The paper should be structured around a focused thesis statement and its supporting evidence. This plan may be simultaneous with the previous steps, especially for short papers. Thinking Maps and Storyboarding are great tools to use during this step.

Writing
6. Writing the paper: This step is a very individualized step in the writing process. Each writer finishes the rough draft in a different manner. You may rush through this step, writing a rough draft quickly just to get ideas on the paper. You may write slowly to eliminate some of the rewriting later. Or, you may write and rewrite at the same time so that you finish the paper when you finish the rough draft. Each method is acceptable; do what fits your style best.

Post-Writing
7. Editing Conference with a Peer and Teacher: At this point, professional writers usually submit their pieces to an editor or a group of editors. This gives the writer feedback to prepare for a second draft.

8. Second Draft-After the prewriting, writing and peer/teacher conferencing stages, students take feedback to rewrite their first draft. (To prevent overwriting, many Type III assignments are acceptable-refer to John Collins) Revision is a time-consuming process. You need to allow time between the writing step and the revising to put distance between the paper and yourself. You need time for reconsideration of the topic if you wish to approach the revision with freshness.

9. Copying and proof-reading: You should now check the paper for typographical errors and make sure you have used the spell check after each revision.

10. Group Share: Students read their finished piece to the class.