6 Traits

This week we read a chapter from Creating Writers - Through 6-Trait Writing Assessment and Instruction by Vicki Spandel. The six traits that define strong writing are ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

I came across the six traits while volunteering in a fourth grade class. I know the students were aware of the six traits (they were posted on the writing wall), and the class spoke about them when discussing what good writing looks and sounds like. The students' writing was assessed based on the six traits, and yet... the six traits were never part of the teacher's direct instruction.

The fourth grade teachers struggled with the fact that they were expected to assess their students' writing based on the six traits, but they were not part of the curriculum to be taught. I am now beginning to wonder if the literacy curriculum was more content based rather than convention based.

In her book, Writing Essentials, Regie Routman explains that as teachers, we are far more productive at teaching writing skills when we embed the teaching of skills in our teaching of writing for purposes and audiences that students understand and value (p. 15). Perhaps the above curriculum writers believed that the students' ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions would come easier if the students were writing for a meaningful purpose.

The above-mentioned fourth grade teacher told me that several parents made comments to her regarding their children's writing - that they were so impressed with the writing that was coming home, and that these weren't the same sons and daughters who were writing in third grade.

Here are my questions: Do the six traits of writing come naturally if students are focused on content, purpose, and audience, or must students receive explicit instruction regarding the six traits in order to utilize and understand their purpose in strong writing?