A Writing Program That Scores With the 6-Trait Model by Lynne Shapiro

The message that I got from this article is that when give the correct methods and information, teachers and students can be successful in the classroom. When writers of all grades know what parts of writing they will be assessed on, they are able to write in a more focused way. The 6-trait writing model allows authors of all grade levels to write creative and vivid work with an appropriate voice as well as provides teachers with an assessment that help them plan for instruction. Implementing this 6-trait model approach is useful not only because it offers consistency from classroom to classroom but also gives more insight into the specific author’s strengths and weaknesses. By identifying a level in each of the 6 traits, educators then know where they need to help individual students as well as what strategies the students are struggling with as a class. When students are made aware of these 6 traits, they can then make connections to the components while reading, making them able to carry strong conversations and begin to read like writers.

I found this approach to writing very interesting and I think I will try to use it in my second grade classroom. Although our second graders participate in writers workshop everyday, I feel that it lacks structure. Many of the students hurry through their work so that they can begin to draw a picture. I really liked that this 6-trait model gave teachers a clear assessment to base their instruction off of. My students are writing small moment stories and have been for a couple of weeks but they are bored with the topic as they are not given much directions. I like that this model shows the teacher what to discuss with the students according to where they are in the writing process.For example, we are currently in the revising stage of the writing process but what this means has not been discussed other than to tell the children to reread their stories and add detail. I would love to start fresh next week by having a lesson on prewriting and talking about the purpose of writing and audience. I really liked how Ms. Rothman used visualization as a way for the class to close their eyes and think about their writing and I think that would work very well in my second grade class. There hasn’t been a discussion as to why we write in our class yet and the lack of enthusiasm during writers workshop tells me that this may need to happen soon. I could see the overlapping with our language arts program pretty easily. Each week we spend time on a specific area of word study and I think the students should be challenged to try and incorporate this into their writing. We are working with singular and plural nouns and I think it would interesting for them to identify these in their own writing. During our read aloud time, we often talk about book language but fall short when it comes to using language of the traits of writing. We could easily talk about words that make verbs stronger and which words act as transitions in a story. I think that breaking down the process trait by trait is something that would be very easily done in our classroom by having writers workshop be more than independent writing. I believe that if we start each workshop with a mini-lesson on a trait, the students will begin to develop their writing in a more thoughtful way.

In order to become successful with this approach, I need to more aware of what the students are writing. In our room, the students work on a piece that is kept in each tables writers workshop bin, which is stored under a table in the back. I was really impressed when watching Ms. Rothman’s video as she frequently took the children’s work home with her to read over and make personalized suggestions and comments. I feel that this would be beneficial to my class because I believe that many of them do not see the point of writing. If they know that I will be reading them, it may help them have a sense of audience and purpose. I would like to have a file with a copy of what the student is writing each week so that I can see their strengths, weaknesses and hopefully their improvements. Each week they write in a homework journal at home and then turn it in on Friday. So far, I have been checking to see if they write at least four sentences on the specific questions, but I think that I could easily incorporate some of the trait language into this journal. The idea of reading strong and weak pieces of writing for assessment practice or revision is something I would also love to exercise in the classroom so I would need to start looking through books and trying to find examples of this. If I could find examples that also incorporate that week’s word study that would be even better.

I think this module helped me to see that before planning a unit, you have to be very conscious of what your objective is. I also think it’s important for the students to know what the goal is whether it is for the day, week or month. I’m sensing a lack of purpose in my classroom and I’m wondering if it is because the students don’t always see the usefulness or importance of the subject. Just as students are stronger in some traits of writing than others, they may have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to test taking and for that reason I think that assessment techniques should be varied. I know that many of my students are visual learners or like to participate in hands on activities so I will try to make my assessments using graphic organizers and hold discussions based on participation. In looking at my two samples of writing from the class, I notice that there are several papers that I had to come back to many times before understanding what was trying to be said. This tells me that the student was thinking about the subject but having trouble writing their thoughts, so i know that I need to 1. talk to this person to orally assess their comprehension and 2. then go back to their writing and see if I can see what they were trying to say and use that to improve their writing.

Salch & Marino (Conferring in the Writing Workshop)

Take home message: Conferring about writing is not easy, it is a “learnable skill” which takes just as much focus on listening as it does on discussing and teaching.

This article focuses on the difficulties of conferencing during writer’s workshop. This article mentions ways to becoming closer to an expert conferrer. It mentions the power of listening, demonstrating emotions while reading, focusing in on one issue and creating an environment that allows the student to become an active participant in his/her own writing conference. Salch and Marino focus on the importance of creating an environment that is favorable to both the student and the teacher, paving way to mini-lessons, beneficial conversations and learning avenues. This article reveals the significance in finding specific areas in a student’s work to praise while teaching the writer, not teaching the writing. Conferences should focus on the work the student is currently working on as well as how it is they are to become better writers. The article mentioned the essential piece of reflecting on such conferences and being able to name directly what it is that we have done to help the student become a better writer.

This approach would definitely be beneficial in my classroom. Currently the students have writer’s workshop and the teachers navigate around the classroom to discuss with students about their work. However, there does not seem to be much discussion around the processes of the students. Rather, I have seen discussions merely focused on content of the students’ work. During this time of independent writing, it would be beneficial for the teachers to meet with individual students and discuss processes, content, and further development of writing abilities. This allows teachers to understand where writers are coming from in the realms of processes and techniques. It will create an environment that is personal yet responsive to each students’ needs and wants.

In order to fully understand, visualize and participate in writing conferences, it would be beneficial to see more teachers engage in this particular activity. In order to carry out such plans, I will need to work on classroom management skills that will create an environment that is conducive for independent work. I will need to create an atmosphere that students are dependent and free to work by themselves as well as discuss with myself without hindering others opportunities to clearly think and reflect. I will need to focus less on the specific “plans for the day” and focus more on listening to students and “going with the flow”. It is important to sometimes navigate away from clear plans and written dialogues, and focus more clearly on where the students are at, and where they may need to be.

This module has allowed me to concentrate and reflect on writing in my own classroom. I was able to start understanding assessments and the variety of avenues in which these can be taken from. I have understood the importance of pulling from a large variety of assessment means in order to provide students with a multitude of different means to convey what they may know. It is important to begin to assess the students’ work in writing as it contributes and integrates into many other subjects including reading and language development.

Beth Kovalcik, Janine L. Certo

Summary

This article overviews a method in teaching a class of second graders poetry. Each day there is a different lesson focusing on one aspect of poetry; color and rhyme, repetition and alliteration, onomatopoeia, and collaborative poetry. This article also addresses how to provide extra support for students struggling with the mechanics of writing so they can still be authors of poems. At the end of this poetry unit, they created a “Café” within their classroom. They invited parents, decorated table with table cloths and vases, and provided refreshments. The morning of their poetry reading students rehearsed while the rest of the class would provide the reader comments, two things the reader did very well and one suggestion for something they could work on. When parents arrived, the class read their collaborative poem, and then each student read his/her poem individually on stage.

Discuss whether and how you would use this approach at your grade level, where it could fit within the language arts curriculum in your classroom, and what it offers for enriching writing instruction beyond what you thought about as you completed Task 1 of this module.

I would love to fit this into our language arts curriculum. It seems like a very positive unit, one that students enjoyed as well. I think that this could fit into our curriculum under our writing category. In our classroom we have journal entries with prompts, this could be something that instead of our usual prompts for a week or two we work on poetry in their journals. This enriches writing instruction because it forces students to think about details, to learn mechanics of poetry such as alliteration and repetition, and also gives them a chance to be an author and feel a sense of ownership. Their poems are something that need to be read aloud, and they should be the ones reading them. This provides a chance for them to learn speaking skills, reading skills, and pride in their work.

Also identify what you think you need to learn to do as a professional in order to use this approach well with your students.

Before I could use this approach, I would need to create a great classroom community where students feel safe and don’t feel like their taking a risk of being made fun of. This is important because students will not want to share their work if they feel this way. As a professional I need to learn skills and activities to do so. I also need to learn more about poetry and focus areas in poetic writing.

Types of assessment necessary for informing your unit development

The article I read for jigsaw, had a point in it where it discussed scripting and transcribing for students as they write. They mentioned that the goal of that assignment was poetry, not spelling and handwriting. This is something that I am going to keep in mind when planning my unit. I will make sure that I can identify the goal, and then decide if there is a way to further promote just that goal without other issues hindering that goal. Because of journals, I have an idea of where students are at in their writing but I need to informally assess students’ spelling and reading skills so I have an idea of what group to place students in during my unit.