What is that good writers do though?
While some elements of what constitutes good writing could be described as subjective, there is much more about good writing that there is widespread agreement on. Ruth Culham (2005) was able to provide educators all over the world with some clarity when she published the 6+1 traits of writing.
Writing Traits. 6+1
The Writing traits offer teachers a way to think about, teach, model and assess writing. It provides a consistent language for us to use and provides a lens for providing feedback to students on their writing. It can be hepful when differentiating instruction to writers of different abilities and ages and will helps develop consistency of instruction across the school.
The original text by Ruth Culham has influenced the work of thousands of educators and schools all across the globe. The Traits are based on attributes that effective writers exhibit.
This week we have learnt all about the traits during Professional Learning sessions conducted by Bourchier St Primary School's Literacy team. Touching on each trait and describing some key qualities of each aimed to give us all a foundational understanding of the traits and how it can help facilitate and improve our writing instruction.
We looked at each trait and used high quality texts we could use as a Mentor (or model) text that explicitly demonstrated the use each writing trait. There are many great books in our Library. that we have access to and so many that demonstrate effective use of the traits of writing. Using high quality texts gives students a clear demonstration of the craft of writing and aims to provide a model that students can emulate in their own writing.
We were also able to look at a real piece of student writing and using each of the traits we analysed a piece of work. This is something that we will be able to do during writing conferences moving forward.
We will keep posting more about the traits and how wea reusing them in our Writers Workshops lessons in the future on this page.
Stay tuned!
REFERENCES
Culham, R. (2005). 6 + 1 traits of writing.