Introducing 6 Traits Introducing 6 Traits into Our Writinginto Our Writing

Introducing 6 Traits Introducing 6 Traits into Our Writinginto Our Writing

Helping to Make Our Writing Helping to Make Our Writing More CompleteMore Complete

Isn’t reading student writing fun?

• Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared, “A horse divided against itself cannot stand alone. Franklin died and is still dead.

What about these gems?

• Miguel Cervantes wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died. And he wrote Paradise Regained.

• Voltaire invented electricity. Gravity was invented by him. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

• Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.

• Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of Species.

• Madman Curie discovered radio.• Karl Marx became one of the Marx

brothers.

The Dreaded Writing Assessment……….

• What are the Keys to Higher Writing Scores????????

Key to Higher Writing Scores…..

• Write daily.• Integrate writing with content areas.• Require students to do more than one draft.• Model writing.• Save student work in portfolio or folder.• Strive for school-wide continuity of

instruction.• Follow a checklist for best practices.

What are the 6 Traits?

What are the 6+1 Traits?

1. Voice2. Word Choice3. Conventions4. Sentence Fluency5. Organization6. Ideas7. Presentation

1.

2.

3.

5.

4.

6.

Ideas

• Start with the ice cream.• What’s a sundae without the ice cream? • The main idea or topic sentence is

essential and begins the piece.• All other “add-ons or toppings” enhance

the ice cream (main idea).

Organization

• Hold it all together with the dish.• The dish (organization) makes the ice

cream (ideas) easier to grasp and prevents it from “melting away.”

Word Choice• Something more to

go on that sundae?• Bananas, candies or

chopped nuts also enhance the sundae.

• There are many types of add-ons (word choice) to compliment your sundae (main idea).

Voice• Hot fudge, strawberries,

pineapple, enhance the ice cream.

• Toppings add individuality to the ice cream (main idea). We don’t all like the same things on our sundaes, do we?

• Without toppings, ice cream is just too blah!

Sentence Fluency• Will there be

anything else to go on your sundae?

• How about some whipped cream to help the toppings “flow along?”

Conventions & Presentation

• What’s a sundae without a cherry to “top it off?”

• Polish up your dessert and add the finishing touch.

• It’s all in the presentation… looks CAN fool the stomach!

• And now… grab a spoon and enjoy!

Ideas and Content• Classroom Bank or List• Journal Page • Realia• Literature Experience• What else?• http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/

langarts/pdf/6traits/ideas.pdf

A Closer Look at Word Choice

• Use powerful words that paint a mental picture for the reader.

• Add descriptive adjectives to enhance nouns.– The lumpy brown toad hopped quickly

through the squishy gooey mud.

• Verbs should be strong action words.– The cows stampeded through the field.– The cows sauntered through the field.

What else?• Try to use specific, rather than

general nouns.– The car zoomed down the street. The

1957 Chevy zoomed down the street.

• Use language that is comfortable, not “flowery” or “stuffy.”– I shall not follow you.

• Avoid slang and cliches.– He was fixin’ to finish his homework.

Let’s Give it a Try!• The toad ______through the mud..• The ______ toad ________through the

_________mud.• The _______ ________ toad __________

________ through the _________ _________ mud.

~ For more ideas, see Connie’s Write On Sentence Stretchers. http://jc-schools.net/write/stretching_files/frame.htm

…And There’s More• Avoid repetition.

– She liked to dance and she liked to skate and she liked to sing.

• Make sure to use words correctly.– There driving to they’re house and

will arrive their by noon.

• Unless you are Hemmingway or Hawthorne, be concise.

Sample Strategies for Teaching Word Choice

• Use cartoon bubbles.• Peer edits– circle 5

words in your partner’s paper that could be stronger.

• During teacher read-alouds point out concrete examples of strong language. (Toad) Post word lists around the room. Use specific parts of speech.

• Encourage use of a Thesaurus. (How many words for “blue” are there?)

• Encourage students to use senses to describe an object. Use colored pencils to underline sensory words.

~ adapted from http://6traits.cyberspace.net/strat6.html

Let’s Give it a Try!

Using our common senses…….

The old man grumbled a bit as he wiped his teary eye with the back of his gnarled hand. He could taste the salt as he rubbed his parched lips. He glanced at his silent wife standing a short distance away. She too was old, but he still saw in her wrinkled face the pretty young girl he had married. She still smelled like freshly mowed spring grass.

Using our common senses…….

The old man grumbled a bit as he wiped his teary eye with the back of his gnarled hand. He could taste the salt as he rubbed his parched lips. He glanced at his silent wife standing a short distance away. She too was old, but he still saw in her wrinkled face the pretty young girl he had married. She still smelled like freshly mowed spring grass.

Key: sound touch taste sight smell

Making Word Posters• Tombstone Words • Sparkle Words

prettygood

soa lotsaid

terrifyingear-splitting

squishyscrumptious

copious

~Encourage your students to add to the lists.

http://jc-schools.net/write/Shining-Words_files/frame.htm

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/langarts/pdf/6traits/word_choice.pdf

Teacher Read Alouds for Teaching Word

Choice• Maniac Magee,

Spinelli• The BFG, Dahl• A Wrinkle in Time.

L’Engle• Anne of Green

Gables, Montgomery

• Lizards for Lunch, Storad

• Half a Moon and One Whole Star, Dragonwagon

• Toad, Ruth Brown

Now Let’s Examine Sentence Fluency

• Let your writing develop an easy flow or rhythm.

• Aim to make your writing ache to be read aloud.– “He moved like a slow-motion instant

replay.” (Christopher Myers)

• Use complete sentences.– Slept soundly in the crib.– The baby slept soundly in the crib.

What else should a good writer do?

• Vary sentence lengths.– He wore a red shirt. He had on brown

slacks. His jacket was wrinkled.– He wore a wrinkled jacket over a red

shirt with brown slacks.

• Vary sentence beginnings.– I like to sing. I like to play the piano.– I like to sing. Playing the piano is my favorite pastime.

Anything else?• Try different sentence structures.

– The cow jumped over the moon. The dish ran away with the spoon.

– The cow jumped over the moon. Did you see the dish run away with that spoon? What an incredible sight!

– http://jc-schools.net/write/I-Trouble.ppt– http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/

langarts/pdf/6traits/sentence_fluency.pdf

Ideas to Teach Sentence Fluency

• Read examples of good fluency and poor fluency.

• Stress to students that sentences need to flow. Avoid choppy sentences.

• Make sure students know the difference between a phrase and a sentence.

• Have students tell their story into a tape player. Writing is a way of speaking on paper.

How about a little Faulkner?

• Frenchman's Bend was a section of rich river-bottom country lying twenty miles southeast of Jefferson. Hill-cradled and remote, definite yet without boundaries, straddling into two counties and owning allegiance to neither, it had been the original grant and site of a tremendous pre-Civil War plantation, the ruins of which —the gutted shell of an enormous house with its fallen stables and slave quarters and overgrown gardens and brick terraces and promenades—were still known as the Old Frenchman's place, although the original boundaries now existed only on old faded records in the Chancery Clerk's office in the county courthouse in Jefferson, and even some of the once-fertile fields had long since reverted to the cane-and-cypress jungle from which their first master had hewn them.

~ The Hamlet, William Faulkner

Teacher Read Alouds to Model Sentence

Fluency• Sarah, Plain and

Tall, MacLachlan• The Van Gogh

Café, Rylant• Lion, Witch and

the Wardrobe, Lewis

• Stealing Freedom, Carbone

Moving on to Voice• Always write from your heart and

share your feelings with the reader.

• Avoid using “you.”• Try not to sound like an

encyclopedia.

Tell me more….• Invest yourself in what you write.

Proudly take ownership.• Connect with your audience.• Give the reader a glimpse at the

person behind the pen.

Strategies to Teach Voice

• Rewrite a popular story from a different character’s point of view. (The Real Story of the Three Little Pigs).

• Read stories with vivid images. Have students close their eyes and draw what they “see.”

• Read segments of dialogue and have students guess who is “speaking.” (Charlotte’s Web)

• Do some Author Studies to compare voice. What is the voice behind Stephen King?

• http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/langarts/pdf/6traits/voice.pdf

Teacher Read Alouds for Voice

• Bridge to Terabithia, Paterson

• Tuck Everlasting, Babbitt

• Ramona Forever, Cleary

• Charlotte’s Web, White

• Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, Blume

• Treasure Island, Stevenson

Bringing new voices into the classroom..

• Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

• Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After that his career suffered a dramatic decline.

• Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of Sarah is such that inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

For more information:• Kim’s Korner for

Teacher Talk– http://www.angelfire.com/ks/

teachme/ideasdescriptors.html

• 6 Traits Homepage– http://6traits.cyberspaces.net/

• 6 + 1 Trait Writinghttp://www.nwrel.org/assessment/

• 6 Trait Lesson Planshttp://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/

LindaJancola/6Trait/lessons.htm#Word%20Choice

• A GREAT Site!!http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/langarts/sixtrtcrsmtrl.htm