6 + 1 Traits

San Marcos Unified School District

Laurie StowellCal State San Marcos

San Marcos Writing Projectlstowell@.csusm.edu

http://www.csusm.edu/coe/outreach/SMWP/

6 + 1 Traits

* Gives teachers, students and parents a common language to talk about writing

Advantages of Analytic Scoring

• Offers broad perspective• Challenges us to think of writing in new ways• Gives us a model for responding to students’

writing• Provides vocabulary for talking with students

about writing• Provides a solid foundation for revision and

editing• Allows students to become evaluators

Assessment for writing

Assessment of writing

Brief history

* K-16 teachers read and sorted stacks and stacks of papers

* After sorting, they extrapolated what the specifics of the papers were that caused teachers to put them in different piles.

* Lists were compiled, descriptors created, and common characteristics or TRAITS emerged.

• “Assessment should be used as feedback only and not as reward or punishment.”

-Jerome Bruner

6 + 1 traits are used:

* In all 50 states, Great Britain, France, South America, China and the Middle East

*By teachers primary through college*By teachers in language arts, math,

science, social studies, foreign language and special education.

The 6 traits + 1

* Ideas (details, development, focus)

* Organization (internal structure)

* Voice (tone, style, purpose and audience)

* Sentence fluency (correctness, rhythm and cadence)

* Word choice (precise language and phrasing)

* Conventions (mechanical correctness)

* And now they also look at Presentation (handwriting, formatting, layout)

The six traits are not a writing curriculum!

They are a way to link effective classroom centered

writing assessment with revision and editing processes.

“We must change from a model that picks winners to

one that will create winners.”

-Harold HodgkinsonMichigan: The state and its

educational system

Scoring the 6 traits way:

The Redwoods

And

Fox

Score for:

•Ideas

•Organization

•Voice

• Word Choice

• Sentence fluency

• Conventions

“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 those qualities.”

-Barry Lane

Scoring with traits

• Start with what is working• What traits does this child have in this piece?• What traits need work in this piece?• Know the student and what he or she is capable of

and can handle in a conference• Choose one or two things to work on in a

particular paper

How to teach the traits

• How students learn the traits: Introduce 1 trait at a time: ideas, organization, voice, word choice sentence fluency, conventions.

• Help students keep the big picture in mind

• 10 things to do your first week back

• Getting started with the traits

• Top 10 tips for teaching writing assessment

• Use the website as a resource

Adapting the traits to fit you

• Just because there are six traits in the model, this does not mean that you have to give every paper six scores every time.

• For example: a particular writing assignment on how species adapt to environmental factors, you might want to emphasize clear ideas, good organization, appropriate scientific terms and perhaps, conventional correctness.

Geometry

Suppose you ask students to determine how many different ways rectangular shapes can be combined to create a design for a one story building. You want them to write an explanation of each step in their thinking.

You might choose to primarily on ideas (clarity), organization (steps in order), word choice (correct mathematics terminology) and conventions (including mathematical symbols).

Weighting

If you do not feel comfortable letting go of any trait altogether, try what many teachers have done: Weight the traits according to emphasis.

For example if students in a group design a newspaper that might have sold in London in the 1800s, what is important?

Weight the traits

Let’s say the assignment is worth 100 points:• Ideas 25• Organization 10• Voice 10• Word choice 20Sentence fluency 10Conventions and presentation 25Weight them however you want: just give

students a clear picture of what is critical.

The power of metaphor

• Robert Marzano's research stresses the importance of making meaning through comparison and contrast thinking.

• Create a metaphor for a good writing piece of writing using the traits as a guide.

Human Body

Forest

The important book• Using The Important book by Margaret

Wise Brown create and important book about the traits including icons to remember them better.

• “The important thing about ideas is they are they heart of the message…”

Publishers developing materials:

– Write Source– Carson Dellosa– Scholastic

Research and resources:

www.nwrel.org/assessmentwww.writingfix.org/traits

Creating Writers (5th edition) by Vicki Spandel

6+1 Traits of writing: The complete guide grades 3 and up (or K-2) by Ruth Culham

(Scholastic)

“Assessment is not something that we tack onto learning: it is an essential ongoing component of instruction that guides the process of learning. Assessment is the horse that leads the cart of understanding.”

Rebecca Simmons