6 Trait Writing

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6 Trait Writing

• IDEAS

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Memorable Places

• Brainstorm memorable or important places in your
  life.
• Choose one place and list sensory images.
• Write about that place.

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Introduce the Concept of the Traits IDEAS

• Ideas are the heart of the message
• Think QUALITY, not QUANTITY
• Information that paints a clear picture in the
  readers mind

Creating Writers, pp. 49, 60
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WRITING PROCESS where do IDEAS fit?
Prewriting
Publishing
Drafting
IDEAS
Sharing
Editing
Revising
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Surround Students with Writers Language

• Clarity
• Focus
• Quality Detail
• Strong Support

• Authenticity
• No filler
• Good balance satisfying, not overwhelming

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Surround Students with Writers Language

• Creative, Personal Face
• Does the writer go beyond the obvious to
  bring the writing to life for readers?

• Informational Face
• Does the reader learn new information quickly
  and easily?

Two Faces
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Teaching Students to be Assessors.

• Rubric
• Teacher
• Student

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Teaching Students to be Assessors.

• Suggestions for sharing and scoring of papers
• Start with papers that are clearly strong or
  clearly weak.
• Do not worry about the grade level of the writer.
• Read the papers aloud.
• Ask students to provide the reasons behind their
  answers.
• Do not limit your practice to student papers.

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Teaching Students to be Assessors.

• Zeena and the Marshmellows
• Read
• Score
• Share with a partner. Be able to justify your
  score.

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Teaching Students to be Assessors.

• Memorable Places
• Score your own writing.
• Share with a partner and justify your score.
  Talk about ways to improve your writing.

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Use Written Worksto Illustrate Strengths

• Focused Lesson
• Bill Nye the Science Guys Big Blue Ocean

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Use Focused Lessons

• Build a lesson
• Choose a piece of writing.
• Design a brief writing activity.
• Craft a mini-lesson.
• Model through your own writing.

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Use Focused Lessons

• Dig for the potatoes.
• Highlight the details that strike you.
• Brainstorm questions.
• Teaching Ideas
• Use your binoculars.

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Focusing Your Binoculars

• Example
• Fuzzy
• The woman looked kind of funny.
• Detailed
• Her black felt hat, which was many sizes too
  large, covered all of her face except her chin.
  When she spoke, we could only see a small patch
  of white bobbing up and down under a large black
  lid.

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Use Focused Lessons

• Now you try
• His classroom was a mess.
• The cafeteria food did not look good to me.
• That principal was mean.

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Teach Students to do Focused Revisions

• Problem 1
• The information is too skimpy! This paper
  simply doesnt say anything.

• Student choice
• Nonfiction read-alouds
• Prewriting
• Observation skills
• Sketch

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Teach Students to do Focused Revisions

• Problem 2
• Too much trivia weighs the text down. I
  dont care how much the dog weighed or when the
  cat was born.

• Determine audience
• Pick a topic and list

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Teach Students to do Focused Revisions

• Problem 3
• Theres too much information. Help! Its
  Huge.

• Cut the copy in half.
• Practice narrowing.
• Possessions can be telling
• Model it.
• Write 10-minute stories.

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IDEAS

• When I was in school I thought details were just
  extra words to add in a story to make it better.
  I thought detail was decoration or
  wallpaperDetails are not wallpaper they are
  walls.
• Barry Lane