coming face to face with the six traits -...

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1 We don’t need to wait until children know all their letters, know their sound- to-symbol relationships, know how to spell all the words they want to use. We don’t need to wait until children can read. Young children are writers as soon as they draw or put a symbol on paper and tell us what it says. We should call them writers and treat them as writers from that moment on. Marcia S. Freeman Teaching the Youngest Writers (1998, ix) My beliefs about children and writing are based on three assumptions: (1) young children can write, (2) young children want to write, and (3) young children possess the knowledge, interests, and experiences to write about. Carol Avery And With a Light Touch (2002, 65) Children can write sooner than we ever dreamed possible. Most children come to school knowing a handful of letters, and with these they can write labels and calendars, letters and stories, poems and songs. They will learn to write by writing and by living with a sense of “I am one who writes.” Lucy McCormick Calkins The Art of Teaching Writing (1994, 83) Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

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Page 1: Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits - pearsoncmg.comptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780132685856/downloads/Spande… · the Six Traits SSpanCh1.indd ... you are a critical reader—and

1

We don’t need to wait until children know all their letters, know their sound-to-symbol relationships, know how to spell all the words they want to use. We don’t need to wait until children can read. Young children are writers as soon as

they draw or put a symbol on paper and tell us what it says. We should call them writers and treat them as writers from that moment on.

Marcia S. Freeman

Teaching the Youngest Writers (1998, ix)

My beliefs about children and writing are based on three assumptions: (1) young children can write, (2) young children want to write, and (3) young children

possess the knowledge, interests, and experiences to write about.Carol Avery

And With a Light Touch (2002, 65)

Children can write sooner than we ever dreamed possible. Most children come to school knowing a handful of letters, and with these they can write labels and

calendars, letters and stories, poems and songs. They will learn to write by writing and by living with a sense of “I am one who writes.”

Lucy McCormick Calkins

The Art of Teaching Writing (1994, 83)

Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

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This book begins with the foundational belief that young children can and do write. The drive—the need to com-

municate with others—is a natural thing, so what we teach is not so much doing it as doing it well, doing it with purpose. How can we do this? By making time for writing. By being writers ourselves. By sharing the best literature on the planet in order to see (and hear) what other writers do well. And by teaching our students to look inside writing—their own as well as that of others. That’s where the lessons lie.

Have you ever asked yourself what makes good writing work? If so, you are a critical reader—and probably a writer as well. Ever ask this question of your students? If you have, you’re already a six-trait writing teacher at heart. The six-trait model came about because teachers—not researchers, not pub-

lishers, not testing companies, but teachers—asked this question of their students and of themselves. This book can show you how to turn their answers (along with your own) into powerful writing instruction.

Third-grade teacher Judy Mazur asked her students one day to complete this sentence: “Good writing has _________.” Her students had “immersed themselves in writing” for the previous six months, and she wanted to get their perspectives as readers and critics. Here are their responses, in their own words:

A main idea

Details

Exciting characters

A good setting

Clear writing

A problem and a solution

An interesting lead

Some mystery

A good conclusion

Voice

Good language

Sensory images

A terrific title

Punctuation

Judy’s students were already thinking like writers. They might not have known it at the time, but they touched on virtually every one of the traits that teachers have identifi ed as vital to writing success. If you know the traits, you can hear those echoes in their words. Ask this question of your own students, and explore the answers together. Once you do, you will never, ever write or revise the same way again.

Where Do the Six Traits Come From?

From us. And from all writers, throughout history. No one invented them any more than Newton invented gravity. They have been around as long as writing itself because they are an integral part of writing. It is impossible to write well without compelling ideas, a sense of organization, strong voice, well-chosen words, fl uent sentences, or conventions that clarify meaning.

The six traits were fi rst described in a rubric—or writing guide—developed by a group of seventeen teachers in the Beaverton, Oregon, school district in 1984. (See Figure 1.1 for a page, with my notes, from that fi rst rubric.)

Those teachers didn’t just jot down whatever was in their heads (though many rubrics are, unfortunately, developed just this way). Instead, they read hundreds of student papers (grades 3 through 12) and ranked them: strong, midlevel (or devel-oping), and beginning (in need of extensive revision). Then they documented their reasons for ranking the papers as they did, and six prominent features stood out.

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This wouldn’t be so remarkable except for the fact that, working independently, these seventeen teachers all came up with the same six traits. I should add that they did not set out to look for six important writing features; it just turned out that way. They might have found three—or eight, and then we would have had a different model.

The most recent version of that original six-trait writing guide appears in Chapters 3 through 8 of this book. It is intended mainly for use with students in grades 3 on up (or primary students writing at an advanced level). This edition also includes an adapted version specifi cally for primary writers. It has been modifi ed to make both assessment and instruction much easier for those working with students K through 2. (The primary continuums from the second edition of this book are also included.)

Where Do the Six Traits Come From? 3

Figure 1.1

Ideally, any performance rubric (six-trait writ-ing guides included) is developed by observing and documenting actual performance. Imagine a rubric for fi gure skating developed by someone who had never skated or watched anyone else skate, and you can grasp at once how important it is for good evaluators to thoroughly under-stand—as observers and doers—the performance they are rating. The best evaluators of writing are people who write themselves—and who also spend time teaching others to write.

Key to Success

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4 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

A good writing guide is not just a tool for assessing. It must also be a guide to revision. That’s one way you can tell the “good” writing guides from the “evil” ones. The good ones are not written in judgmental language; they’re designed to guide writers through revision, showing them step by step how to make their writ-ing stronger.

Creating a Vision of Success

As my friend and colleague Rick Stiggins loves to say, “Students can hit any educa-tional target that holds still for them” (2001, 12). In other words, no matter what we teach, we must show students what effective, strong performance looks like. How do we do this? We begin by defi ning it for ourselves, as writers—and as readers.

Writing teaches us what is possible—and what is diffi cult. Reading gives us awareness and sensitivity. We catch our breath at the good moments, wince at the bad ones. As author Stephen King tells us, “Constant reading will put you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page” (2000, 150).

In What You Know By Heart, Katie Wood Ray reminds us that “Every single text we encounter presents a whole chunk of curriculum, a whole set of things to know about writing” (2002, 92). Good writing teaches us how to capture detail, how to begin or end in interesting ways, how to use words or phrases we never thought of before, how to craft sentences, and how to package our writing—as a novel, poem, picture book, cookbook, diary, essay, or any other type of text.

Once we know what it is we mean by “good writing,” we are much better pre-pared to share our vision with students—as clearly and thoroughly as we possibly can. It isn’t fair to make them guess what we want or what we value. Sharing a “vision” means sharing samples of what good writing can look like—both samples of writing done by students and a vast array of published writing from books to websites.

Sharing the vision also means modeling—letting students see how writing looks as it’s unfolding. Modeling reveals both process and product. Writing isn’t just what appears on the page; it’s also all the decisions needed to get it there.

And fi nally, sharing the vision means sharing writing guides—because that’s how we make our vision of success public. We all use rubrics—but sometimes they’re inter-nal. They only exist in our minds. Make no mistake: That doesn’t make them any less real—or infl uential. I had teachers who valued length, others who loved penman-ship—or general neatness. A treasured few valued voice. As student writers, we even-tually fi gured out what was “written” on each internal rubric, but if our teachers had committed what they valued to paper, that would have made the assessment process more honest and saved us a lot of trial and error.

Handy though they may be, writing guides—even the very best of them—aren’t holy writ. Here are three things to remember about them:

They’re constantly evolving. They don’t tell us everything. The best ones are the ones you write yourself.

A rubric is nothing more than a refl ection of our current thinking. As that thinking changes, the rubric must change, too. Further, a rubric, no matter how precise and well written, cannot tell all there is to know about a piece of writing, any more than a résumé tells all there is to know about a human being. But it does remind us of important features—and it gives children (especially primary children) important

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clues about what makes writing effective and what we’ll be looking for as we review their work.

Think of the writing guides and continuums in this book as a jumping off point. I share them to get you started. As you and your students talk about all the remarkable writing in the world, add to these rubrics. Revise them. Make them your own. That way, they will be an extension of your thinking.

The Six “Keys to Good Writing”

Here’s a quick review to help you start defi ning the six traits in your own mind. Think of those “traits” as “keys to good writing,” and you’ll immediately understand the power of aligning traits with writing process to help unlock the door to revision.

Ideas: The MessageIdeas are the heart and soul of good writing, the writer’s main message or story line—and all the details that support or expand that message or story.

In this snapshot from her autobiography A Girl from Yamhill, author Beverly Cleary describes an episode with her fi rst grade teacher, Miss Falb (1988, 78):

Once I was ordered, without being told why, to the cloakroom, where I huddled,

sniffling, among rubbers and lunch bags. For weeks after that, the smell of peanut

butter sandwiches made my stomach curl. Once a plump and cheerful girl named

Claudine was punished by being sentenced to crouch in the dark cave under Miss

Falb’s desk with Miss Falb’s feet in their ugly black oxfords.

Feel yourself cringing just a little? Smell the rubbers and peanut butter? Feel the musty gloom close round you, and the grim presence of black oxfords lurking in that dark cave under Miss Falb’s desk? Then you know the power of clear ideas—and detail. Of course, detail can take many forms. Sensory detail, as in Cleary’s passage, is one.

Detail can also be used to create vivid imagery, as in this description of the pirate Black Stache from Peter and the Starcatchers (2004, 330):

He was a strikingly unpleasant figure, with a pock-marked face and a large red

nose, like a prize turnip, glued to his face. His long black hair, greasy from years

without washing, stained the shoulders of the red uniform coat he’d stolen from a

Navy sailor on the high seas, just before escorting that wretched soul over the side

of the ship. He had dark, deepset, piercingly black eyes, overshadowed by eyebrows

so bushy that he had to brush them away to see through the glass. But his most

prominent feature was the thick growth of hair on his upper lip, long and black, lov-

ingly maintained, measuring nearly a foot between its waxed and pointed tips.

Or—details may come in the form of fascinating facts, as in this passage from How Fast Is It? by Ben Hillman (2008, 15):

Bamboo is the lightning of grass. It grows so fast that you can actually hear it

growing! Some species of bamboo can easily grow more than 12 inches (30 cm) per

day—rocketing up to the sky from a teeny sprout to full grown towering maturity—as

much as 80 feet (24m) high or more—in less than three months!

Details make pictures—sometimes movies—in our minds. They entertain and enlighten us, deepen our understanding, and make us curious to know more. Nothing

The Six “Keys to Good Writing” 5

Detail is electric … In writing, detail is every-thing. It shocks, explodes, illuminates. It electrifi es the reader’s imagination and sparks a chain reaction of associations.

—Bonni Goldberg

Room to Write (1996, 67)

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6 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

in writing matters more than detail. It supports ideas, guides organizational fl ow, and bolsters voice.

Organization: DesignOrganization is the design and structure of a piece of writing, a kind of roadmap for the reader. Organization can vary tremendously from genre to genre. A mystery story and a recipe are designed very differently, but both need structure: a begin-ning to set things up, a sense of direction to keep things moving, and an ending to provide closure.

A good lead (beginning) is vital. If the lead is fl at, readers tune out. Jack on the Tracks (by Jack Gantos) opens this way: “It was dark. Dad was driving and I was riding shotgun” (2001, 3). Suppose that Gantos had said instead, “In this book, I will explain to you, the reader, how it feels to move to another town.” Just like that, the magic is gone.

Leo Lionni’s much-loved children’s book, Frederick, opens with this line: “All along the meadow where the cows grazed and the horses ran, there was an old stone wall” (1967, 1). You want to know who lives under that wall, don’t you? It doesn’t take young readers/listeners long to learn that a good lead takes you by the hand and pulls you into the writer’s world.

Organization is also about internal structure—fi nding a pattern that fi ts: step by step, problem-solution, mystery and revelation, argument and support, comparison and contrast, visual description, daily journal, question and answer—or most often, some blend of designs. One reason formula writing doesn’t work very well is that there are so many genres—so many possible patterns. If all writing were exactly the same, formula would be a breakthrough discovery. Since it isn’t, formula works more like a ball and chain, weighing us down as we struggle to arrange ideas effectively.

Nothing is more important to design than a good conclusion. When you open a greeting card, what are you looking for? When you listen to a joke, what are you anticipating? The punch line. When we are disappointed in a book—or a TV show or fi lm—it’s often because it doesn’t end in the way we had anticipated or hoped for. Of course, surprise endings are the best of all—when they work. That’s the key.

When an ending feels right, we know it instinctively. It’s sad when Charlotte (in Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White) dies, but we don’t want White to write, “Charlotte lived on and on—forever!” Not really. There is more comfort in his closing com-ment: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both” (1980, 184).

Voice: Fingerprints on the PageAll readers respond to voice. Of the thousands of defi nitions put forward for this elusive concept, I still like Donald Murray’s best. “Voice,” Murray tells us, “separates writing that is read from writing that is not read” (1984, 144). That cuts right to it.

Voice is the quality that keeps us tuned in, that makes us feel as if we know the writer. It’s a sharing of self. Voice forms a bond between reader and writer, creating a sense of trust. Very often I hear voice defi ned as “the personality of the writer on the page.” That’s part of it, all right, but voice is so much more than personality. It is the confi dence (that comes from knowing a topic well), enthusiasm, curiosity, and passion for honesty that is uncompromising. As Anne Lamott reminds us, “Good writing is about telling the truth” (1995, 2).

Telling the truth in writing means sharing detail that sounds and feels authen-tic, that makes us say, “That’s real.” We hear that kind of authenticity in this lead from Peter and the Starcatchers (2004, 1), which plunges us into a stifl ing carriage with six unwashed bodies:

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The tired old carriage, pulled by two tired old horses, rumbled onto the wharf, its

creaky wheels bumpty-bumping on the uneven planks, waking Peter from his restless

slumber. The carriage interior, hot and stuffy, smelled of five smallish boys and one

largish man, none of whom was keen on bathing.

Young writers are among the best, most astute critics anywhere. They simply can’t lie. Read any piece of writing to a group of fi rst graders, and you will know at once from their body language and facial expressions whether they think it has voice. I recall sharing Jack Gantos’s book Rotten Ralph to a K–1 group of students as they listened enraptured. When I asked what they liked about it, one student responded, “It’s expressive.” I was smitten. That was the perfect word, all right—but not the one I’d expected from such a young group. “How about the rest of you?” I ventured. “Do you know what expressive means?” A small girl in the front row raised her hand. “I know what it means,” she said. “It means it has voice.” That was a perfect moment.

On another occasion, I shared a very different sample of writing, “The Redwoods” (see Figure 1.2) with a group of fi rst graders. I didn’t tell them it was a student sample. I just asked if they’d like to hear a story called “The Redwoods.” They couldn’t wait. We made ourselves comfortable on the reading rug, and as I read, I could see (over the top of the paper) their small faces, morphing from excitement to puzzlement to dismay. What sort of story was this? And why on earth had I chosen it? “Would you like to hear it again?” I asked—biting my lip, knowing what the answer would be. Heads shook solemnly. “No, thank you.” That’s how fi rst graders assess voice; it’s a measure of how eager they are to hear a piece again—and again.

As you read “The Redwoods,” you may think to yourself, “Well, it isn’t my all-time favorite piece. But it is clear and legible, it has complete sentences and gor-geous paragraphs, and a beginning and ending of sorts. Plus, the conventions are downright terrifi c—and she loves her family! Couldn’t we give her a point or two for that?” I agree. There are many positives. The heartbreaking thing about “The Redwoods” is that it isn’t a sample of primary writing; it was written by an eleventh grader—one who had been consistently rewarded for neatness, good spelling, and correct punc-tuation—but never for voice. No one ever took time to say, “Gretchen, your editing is outstanding—but I don’t hear you in here. I want to hear your voice.” This is writing shaped by years of assessment that neglected to focus on what mattered most.

Word Choice: PhrasingWord choice is all about using the right word at the right moment. Good word choice contributes to clarity certainly, but it can also evoke feelings, moods, likes, and dislikes. For young writers, good language often means new language—or sometimes, familiar words used in unexpected ways.

In Just the Right Size: Why Big Animals Are Big and Little Animals Are Little, zool-ogist Nicola Davies explains how and why size affects all sorts of things, from lifting

The Six “Keys to Good Writing” 7

Figure 1.2

The RedwoodsLast year, we went on a vacation and

we had a wonderful time. The weather was sunny and warm and there was lots to do, so we were never bored.

My parents visited friends and took pictures for their friends back home. My brother and I swam and also hiked in the woods. When we got tired of that, we just ate and had a wonder-ful time.

It was exciting and fun to be together as a family and to do things together. I love my family, and this is a time that I will remember for a long time. I hope we will go back again next year for more fun and an even better time than we had this year.

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8 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

to fl ying. We learn why ants can lift many times their own weight (while we can-not), and why (much as we might like to) we’ll never fl y outside of an airplane. In one passage (2009, 21) Davies explains how geckos can scurry up walls and across ceilings to hunt for their favorite food: insects. We, of course, cannot do this. She might have used very formal language to draw this contrast: “Geckos’ body mass and anatomy are better suited to climbing than those of humans.”

Luckily for us, Davies uses the sort of conversational language and quirky detail that pull readers right into her discussion:

The secret’s in their toes, which are shaped like flattened spoons. Under a

microscope you can see that gecko toes are covered with thousands of tiny hairs.

These hairs can fit tightly onto the smoothest wall . . . . So why can’t we have spoon-

shaped ‘hairy toes’ and run up walls like a gecko? The answer (of course!) lies in

the BTLT [big thing, little thing] rule. We weigh thousands of times more than a tiny

gecko, and we’d need toes tens of thousands times bigger than a gecko’s to hold us

on the ceiling—much too big for running around without tripping!

It’s fun to read about “spoon-shaped ‘hairy toes’” and imagine how very large our toes would need to be to enable us to cling to ceilings. Language, particularly in a specialized fi eld like zoology, can be used to build walls that keep readers out. Good writers take down walls by using words readers understand, and employing them in a way that creates unforgettable pictures. Next time you see a gecko, what will you think of fi rst?

In The Twits, mischievous author Roald Dahl, always up for a bit of the gro-tesque, forces us to look closely at Mr. Twit’s moustache, where we are dismayed to fi nd “maggoty green cheese or a moldy old cornfl ake or even the slimy tail of a tinned sardine” (1980, 7). Then comes the killer line: “By sticking out his tongue and curling it sideways to explore the hairy jungle around his mouth, he was always able to fi nd a tasty morsel here and there to nibble on.” Looking was bad enough, but Dahl pushes us in close, where—despite our minds’ objections—we feel our own tongues “curling sideways” to explore the “hairy jungle,” and like it or not, we fi nd ourselves sniffi ng the “maggoty green cheese.” As we can see from this example, strong verbs (sticking, curling, explore, nibble) are—along with expressions like “hairy jungle”—a major contributor to voice.

Sentence Fluency: Rhythm and FlowSentence fl uency is the rhythm and fl ow of language—the way it plays to the ear. It’s also about the thousands of ways in which writers can manipulate sentences to create meaning.

Poetry, like song lyrics, is the essence of fl uency when it is well crafted. Prose, however, can mimic the qualities that make those two forms of writing so captivat-ing, as in this passage from The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan:

Raindrops strummed across the zinc roof. Water mysteriously trilled above him,

worming its way indoors. Weepy puddles dripped from the ceiling, filling the pots that

had been poised to catch them. (2010, 5)

The masterful alliteration (“worming its way”) and consonance (“weepy puddles dripped”) in these lines, of course, add to the effect, mimicking the sound of water “strumming” and “dripping.” But in addition, notice how each line begins just a little differently, drawing attention to a new image, a new set of sounds—that build to a crescendo in our minds.

Fluent sentences tend to vary both in length and in structure—unless the writer uses repetition on purpose: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . It

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was the season of light, it was the season of darkness . . . It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .” (Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, p. 1). Sometimes, writers don’t use full sentences at all, but rely on fragments for emphasis, as in The Dot (unpaginated) by Peter H. Reynolds (2003):

Vashti painted and painted.

A yellow dot.

A green dot.

A red dot.

A blue dot.

Fragments can be particularly handy in dialogue, as in Chris Raschka’s classic all-dialogue book, Yo! Yes? (1998, unpaginated)—

Hey!

Who?

You!

Me?

The simplicity and shortness of these spoken sentences gives them special appeal to young readers.

In contrast, sentences can sometimes go on and on, creating a sense of momen-tum, action, speed—as in Gary Paulsen’s description of his fi rst sled run with new puppies. Freed for the fi rst time from the confi nes of their kennel, the pups take off at a dead run, and like Paulsen’s writing, they cannot stop for breath (Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers, 1996, 52):

We ran for two hours and we saw more mice and deer and grouse and rabbits and

birds in the sky and a moose and a car when we crossed the road and a farm dog

that ran with us for a while and a coyote and a weasel and a porcupine, and we went

after every one of them, laughing and snorting and falling and tumbling, but we

didn’t catch any of them and it never did matter.

Sometimes the main thought comes at the beginning of the sentence, followed by description—as in this line from The Storyteller’s Beads by Jane Kurtz: “Sahay leaped up, tangling the thread she had been so carefully smoothing” (1998, 3). And other times, the author hears the rhythm differently, putting description fi rst and holding the main idea for the end, as in this line from One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies: “Not much bigger than a bottletop, she hides in the green shadows” (2001, 8).

Skillful writers read everything they write aloud to get the sound and rhythm just right. Fluency is readily measured by the sound of language—but also by how easy it is to read text aloud and to weave in plenty of expression as you do so. Like word choice, fl uency contributes mightily to voice.

When the little mouse Amos (of Amos and Boris) fi rst sets sail, Steig describes the scene this way: “He was enjoying his trip immensely. It was beautiful weather. Day and night he moved up and down, up and down, on waves as big as moun-tains, and he was full of wonder, full of enterprise, and full of love for life” (1971). Notice the varied sentence beginnings, the purposeful use of repetition to create rhythm, and the masterful emphasis that goes with the parallel structure—“full of wonder, full of enterprise, and full of love for life.”

Sometimes we think that students do not notice these little differences on writ-ing. They do, though. I would be surprised to hear second graders chatting about the effectiveness of parallel structure, but it would not surprise me at all to have one say (as second grader Marie said to me), “I love the sound of that” (meaning Amos

The Six “Keys to Good Writing” 9

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10 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

and Boris). And it wouldn’t surprise me to see parallel structure turn up in Marie’s writing one of these days.

Conventions & Presentation: Preparing to PublishConventions & Presentation are all about packaging writing—getting it ready to share with the world. The trait has two parts. The fi rst part, conventions, includes anything a copy editor would deal with: spelling, punctuation, use of capitals, grammar and usage, and indenting or using other means to indicate paragraphing. I think of these things as textual conventions.

The second part, presentation, includes visual features such as font size or type, bullets, illustrations, graphics, use of color, arrangement of words and pictures on the page, and so forth—in short, anything that gives a document eye appeal and makes information easy to fi nd.

In teaching conventions to primary writers, we need to begin with the simplest of traditions, such as writing from left to right or wrapping a sentence down and left when you run out of space in the right margin. As students gain conventional skill, they can begin to concern themselves with correct spelling or paragraph-ing—and later, nuances of grammar or sophisticated punctuation such as ellipses, semicolons, or dashes.

Presentation (format, layout) on the page is highly signifi cant to many young writers, especially once they are ready to publish and to think about title pages, book covers, and so on. We should not judge a book by its cover, we are told, but we most surely do, as designers are well aware. I am skeptical of anyone who claims never to have bought a book solely on the basis of its cover—the illustra-tion, the font, the color, the whole look of it. Here are just a handful of the many books whose covers spoke to me enough to make me pick the book up, leaf through it—and ultimately buy it:

Lord of the Forest Wabi Sabi A River of Words The Lion and the Mouse Red Sings from the Treetops Written in Bone January’s Sparrow

Presentation is also critical in newsletter and newspaper copy, greeting cards, post-ers, advertisements, menus, maps, brochures, websites, signage for public venues like museums and zoos—or any writing in which capturing the reader’s attention matters as much as content.

A Real Life SampleNow that you know how the traits can look—should look—let’s explore the traits in a real sample of student writing (see Figure 1.3). I chose this piece partly because I love it—but also because it’s written by a third grader, and it’s a bit closer to sec-ondary writing than many of the other samples in this book, making it easier to spot the traits quickly.

You need to read this paper aloud to appreciate it. Skim it once to get the idea; then read it again, full throttle. Don’t hold back. Enjoy every moment. Let me also

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suggest that you jot down your fi rst impressions on a piece of scratch paper before reading my comments. Then compare. Here are my thoughts . . .

IdeasThe message could hardly be more clear—“I’m a rocker, a tomboy, a carnivore, and a rough and tumble tree climber who loves burping and other disgusting habits. If you love these things too, we can be buds!”

OrganizationSome people would call this disorganized because it’s essentially a random list—or so it seems at fi rst glance. But take a closer look. It has a strong open-ing: “A good friend for me would be a female tom-boy.” And the ending brings it full circle: “If you do everything you are my best friend.” The writer goes back and forth between qualities that make for a good friend—and things that will spoil the whole deal. I’m sure some people would like to group those together neatly, but I fi nd it much more natural and conversa-tional this way.

VoiceWow. That’s my response. This writer is ALL about voice. It just explodes from the page. It comes from her total honesty. She tells everything, sharing thoughts and feelings in a way that’s energetic and vibrant. She is precisely the kind of person I’d love to have for a friend.

Word ChoiceThe word choice is natural and the phrasing contributes to voice—viva piñatas, you probably can guess, I am a rocker, Warning. No vegetarians—and so on. Are we thunderstruck by the writer’s vocabulary? Not really . . . and yet, because she uses everyday language with such fl air, I see this as a defi nite strength.

Sentence FluencyThis is a mixed bag. Parts are wonderful: If she couldn’t and didn’t like it, she couldn’t be my friend. Other parts are bumpy: The things I like. Be careful, though; this writer uses fragments with ease and style: No matter what age . . . Warning. No vegetarians. She has an ear for language; her phrasing is natural and rich. Imagine it on the stage. She just needs to read over everything she writes to maintain the fl uency that is part of her style.

Conventions & PresentationI’m ignoring Presentation for this piece since the writer didn’t have a chance to do any formatting or illustrating. Conventions again are a bit of a mix. A few words are misspelled (including want—it’s always deadly to misspell a word in the title) and there’s at least one missing apostrophe. On the other hand, look at how many

The Six “Keys to Good Writing” 11

You Whant to be My Friend?By Talissa (3)

Figure 2.1

You whant to be my friend? Well a good friend for me would be a female tomboy. She would like nature, animals and stones. She would like burping and burping the ABCs. If she couldn’t & didn’t like it she couldn’t be my friend. If you don’t like Star Wars you are not my friend. I love Star Wars. Oh & viva pinyatas, legos, bionicals. The things I like. You problebly can guse one of my favorite video games. Lego Star wars! Its kind of easy to be my friend just a few minuts or secons & We are friends. But if you don’t like drumming thers a big chance you aren’t my friend. I am a rocker. I am also very disgusting. Even boys think so. No matter what age. But be carful. Warning. No vegitarians. I am mostly a carnivore. And last of all exploring & climbin trees are OK. Remember if you do everythin you are my best friend.

Figure 1.3

A writer can have faults and still be wonderful, because the best writ-ing goes beyond simple mastery of language. Its power lies elsewhere—in one’s understanding of the human heart and the ways of the world, in one’s capacity for making moral judgments, in knowing a thing or two about life, in telling a great story.

—Patricia T. O’Conner

Words Fail Me (1999, 5)

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12 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

words are spelled correctly: friend, female, tomboy, burping, couldn’t, didn’t, video, drumming, disgusting, warning, carnivore, exploring, remember. I wouldn’t call this trait a strength—yet. But if we can slow this writer down long enough to take a second look, what a difference it will make. Meantime, that voice . . .

Just imagine “The Redwoods” in the hands of this writer. What might we have learned about the feel of bark so thick and rough it won’t yield to fi res, the scent of trees that make a living landscape for ferns and fl owers, or the tingly feeling of invisible showers falling beneath a canopy of trees so mighty they make their own rain? Even a quick comparison between this piece and “The Redwoods” tells us that the writer’s age isn’t as much of a factor as we might have thought. Yes, writ-ers’ thinking matures, their vocabulary stretches, and their control over standard conventions grows with time. But there is more to writing. There is sensitivity, observation, honesty, and a willingness to share from the heart.

Where Should I Begin?

Weaving the traits into your curriculum doesn’t begin with handing out rubrics. Instead . . .

Begin with writing, providing opportunities for your students to write often and for many purposes—even if they write only a word, a phrase, or a letter string at fi rst. Write with them, and model writing. Create your own stories and poems, and share them with your students.

Begin with talking. Don’t be timid about using writers’ language. Talk about the voice you hear in pieces like Talissa’s. Listen together for fl uency. Use terms like detail, lead, conclusion, design, audience, word choice, and conventions. In writ-ing, as in nearly anything we do, knowing the language of the territory is the fi rst step to power.

Begin with reading, with sharing the books you love. In the case of primary students, the fi rst experience with writ-ing traits often comes from listening to language used well—in books like Puppies, DOGS, and Blue Northers, One Tiny Turtle, The Dreamer, How Fast Is It?, Amos & Boris, The Twits—and your own favorites.

Here’s an important thing to remember: Young students hear the traits long, long before those traits ever appear in their own writing. When you ask students to describe what they picture as you read and they can do that, you have taught them what details are. You have only to give it a name. When you see students hanging on your words, waiting for you to turn the page, and they ask you to please, please keep reading, you have taught the trait of voice. You have only to give it a name. Soon your students will be listening for favorite words and inviting leads and conclu-sions that ring true—and all the things that you and they teach one another to value in writing. When you name these things, you empower your students to think and to speak like writers. It is a fi ne gift.

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Study Group 13

Something to Think AboutWhen teachers hear about the six traits in workshops, they often say, “This is all so familiar! I teach this already!” Do you feel that way? It wouldn’t be surprising since it’s hard to teach writing without talking about ideas, organization, voice, and all the rest. But what trait-based instruction can offer is a way of getting orga-nized. In No More “I’m Done!” author and teacher Jennifer Jacobson talks about the “buffet method” of teaching writing: “details on Monday, great leads on Tuesday, lively verbs on Wednesday, proper nouns on Thursday, focus on Friday” (2010, 54). Focusing on the traits helped her to group related lessons together, thereby giving her young writers time to think more deeply about what it means to develop an idea or organize information. You may fi nd that a trait-based approach to writing instruction will help you “reorganize” all the wonderful things you’re already doing.

Study Group: Interactive Questions and Activities

1. Activity. Brainstorm your own list of the qualities you think are most important to good writing. As you do this, (1) work with a group, and (2) have before you samples of writing: student samples, as well as excerpts from other written materials. As you list the qualities, try connecting each of them to one of the six traits: ideas (content, main theme or message, details); organization (lead, design or order, transitions and connections, ending); voice (presence, individuality, tone and fl avor, honesty, liveliness and energy); word choice (carefully selected words, precision of meaning, phrasing,

strong verbs, sensory details); sentence fl uency (rhythm, readability, smooth sentence fl ow, sen-tence-to-sentence continuity, authentic dialogue); conventions & presentation (spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage, paragraphing, capitalization, layout and design). Is there anything on your list that is outside the scope of these six traits?

2. Discussion. Analyze the personal list you put together in Activity 1. Are there any traits you weighted somewhat more heavily than others? Are any traits omitted altogether from your list? Discuss how this might infl uence your teaching.

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14 CHAPTER 1 Coming Face to Face with the Six Traits

3. Activity and Discussion. Analyze a sample of your own writing using the “rubric” that lives in your own mind right now. What strengths do you see or hear in your own writing? What pleases or excites you about the way you write? What things do you think you—as a writer—need to work on most? How could you use this insight to strengthen the modeling you do for students? Discuss this with colleagues. (Put this writing away for a time; you will look at it again when you fi nish Chapter 15.)

4. Activity and Discussion. As a group, select two or more favorite books: adult or young adult litera-ture, picture books, nonfi ction—your choice. Look through them and identify the qualities that jump

out at you. What strengths do you notice in par-ticular? What does this tell you about why you are drawn to certain types of literature? Discuss this.

5. Activity and Discussion. If you are currently teaching, try the activity Judy Mazur did with her group of third graders. That is, ask them to complete this sentence: Good writing has _____________. To kick off this activity, consider sharing one or two favorite pieces of writing to get students’ mental wheels turning. Once you create a class list, keep it posted where you and your students can see it and add to it throughout the school year. Share the results of this activity with your colleagues.

Coming Up . . .

Chapter 2 shows how to set the stage for bringing traits into your classroom by cre-ating a nurturing environment in which the traits can fl ourish. You will see how to establish writing workshop as a routine and introduce students to writing process.

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