You have probably heard about 6 Traits writing from your child, teachers, and seen posters and signs around the school using 6 Trait language. Here is a brief guide to get you going:
Six Traits: A Way to Support and Improve Writing
Writing is an integral part of your child’s education. The process begins before kindergarten and continues through life. The traits provide a language for describing the qualities that most readers and writers think are important in good writing.
What is the Six Traits Model?
It is an instruction and assessment model to support and improve writing performance. The model uses quality literature to support writing instruction and scoring guides for assessment
What is a trait?
A trait is a specific characteristic of successful performance.
The traits of good writing are Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions.
Benefits of the Six Traits Model
1. It gives teachers and students a common language to talk about writing.
2. It breaks down the complex process of writing into manageable ―chunks.‖
3. It aligns with standards-based instruction: students define quality and know what the expectations are.
4. It gives teachers a model for responding to student writing.
5. It establishes consistency from year to year and teacher to teacher.
6. It provides a solid foundation for revision and editing.
7. It encourages writers to become more independent; it empowers them to evaluate and assess their own writing.
8. It gives teachers and students valuable feedback about student performance.
9. It challenges students to think of writing in new ways.
10. It provides opportunities to monitor progress over time.
How Can Parents Help?
Coach – don’t write – for your child. Question, listen, and talk about writing together. Students need to do their own drafting, revising, and editing with you at the sidelines.
Look first for what is done well in the writing and offer praise. Writing is a challenging task. Children need specific encouragement to be successful.
Ideas
Ideas are the heart of the message. They are the thoughts, the main point, the content, or the main story line of the piece.
Organization
Organization is the framework of the writing piece. Organization is what holds the ideas together to convey meaning. Each writing piece has a beginning, middle, and end—that is organization!
Voice
Voice is many things: personal words, ideas, tone, and style. Voice has the power to hold a reader’s attention and make the reading more enjoyable. Voice is used purposefully to en- hance meaning.
Word Choice
In order for the reader to get the idea or point, the writer must choose ―just the right‖ words or phrases to get the message across to the reader.
Sentence Fluency
Sentences make sense, and phrasing and word choice make them easy to read and under- stand. When a piece of writing is easy to read aloud, it has sentence fluency.
Conventions
Conventions are spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and usage, and paragraphs
http://mrschristianson.pbworks.com/f/SixTraitsbrochure.pdf
Click here for the ISS 6 traits assessment rubric for K-2 students
Click here for the ISS 6 traits assessment rubric for G3-5 students