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Contrary to popular myth, there are no six-trait police roving the world's classrooms, enforcing the proper way to assess word choice, organization, and all the rest. Instead, a select group of veteran writing teachers and trainers works collaboratively to keep the 6+1 Trait™ Writing Assessment and Instruction Model "on the same page," whether it's being used in Delaware or Denver, Texas or Tokyo.
Since 1994, the Writing Assessment Vanguards have been convening for an annual invitational summer conference. This year's event in Portland, Oregon, was a typically enthusiastic affair, with Vanguards traveling from all corners of the country to share ideas about what makes for good writing assessment. Participants describe the annual session as a shot in the arm, invigorating their teaching with fresh ideas and giving them a chance to reflect on their own evolution as educators.
Ruth Culham, who coordinates six-traits assessment for the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, says assembling this team of expert teachers and trainers is essential, "because all of a sudden, the whole country is doing 6+1 TraitsTM. We're seeing an exponential leap, so it's more important than ever to connect and reinforce what we're doing." Culham and Janice Wright from NWREL's Assessment Program maintain a busy travel schedule, conducting institutes on the traits all over the country. To meet increasing demand for training, Culham often refers local school districts or state agencies to her colleagues from the Vanguards. With so many players involved, Culham says, the network of experts "helps keep our message on point."
This collaborative approach to quality control is in keeping with the grassroots spirit that led to the development of the traits two decades ago. As Culham recounts, teachers who taught writing back in the 1980s were growing frustrated with multiple-choice assessments that tended to focus only on mechanics, or holistic assessments that graded the overall impact of a piece of work but failed to give specific guidance for improvement. Teachers who sought a better model began by asking, "What is good writing? What are the parts and pieces, the criteria of quality writing?" Working on similar tasks in different communities, teachers from Oregon, Montana, and elsewhere compared reams of student work and discussed the qualities or traits that all "good" writing samples shared. Six traits emerged as the cornerstones of quality writing: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions. Later, presentation was added to the list.
During the two decades since then, as the 6+1 Trait™ framework has spread from Oregon to every state and to many countries around the world, maintaining consistency has become a challenge. Culham and her Vanguard cohorts often find themselves debunking myths about the traits. Most common: mistaking the traits for a program to teach writing. Far from it, Culham stresses. "They are a tool to use with your writing program, which we believe ought to be firmly aligned with the writing process."
One of the highlights of the annual conference is the chance for Vanguards to share examples of how they are seeing the traits used effectively in the real world of the classroom. David Pelto, who recently retired after a career of teaching high school in Alaska, summed up his experience of using the assessment model over the long term: "I can look back at student writing samples I've been collecting since I started using this model and see how my students' work has improved. The level of excellence has steadily gone up in their work. As a teacher, I have changed along with my students."
As the following examples illustrate, there's no shortage of good ideas for using the traits to complement a well-designed writing program. "Once teachers know the traits well," Culham points out, "the link to instruction becomes clear. This is where the real fun begins."
Jim Blasingame first bumped into the 6+1 TraitsTM of writing assessment a decade ago. "It was a coincidence," admits the Arizona State University English professor, but a fortuitous one. He went on to write his doctoral dissertation about the traits and now helps future teachers understand the role of effective assessment in developing the skills of young writers. A former high school English teacher, Blasingame also consults with school districts and provides indepth training sessions to teachers interested in learning how to use the traits to improve their instruction.
In an ASU course called Methods of Teaching Writing, Blasingame devotes about half the term to teaching about the 6+1 Trait™ model. ASU students—most of them preparing for teaching careers—are enthusiastic when they begin to see how the traits support sound writing instruction. "They tell me: This is the first class I've taken that has given me concrete things I can do in the classroom," he says.
To give preservice teachers more opportunities to put theory into practice, Blasingame helped launch an after-school writing club at Fees Middle School in Tempe. Here, his college students tutor middle-schoolers who voluntarily come to the club to work on writing projects. The club is part of the school's 21st Century Community Learning Center and also has been supported by a seed grant from Motorola. "It's a laboratory for new teachers to see what works," Blasingame explains. "They come up with ideas for writing activities, then go over their plans with me or my graduate assistant. We look for potential hazards or obstacles. Then they try it, with real-live kids. Any rough spots present themselves quickly."
Young writers benefit, Blasingame says, when they are coached to use "a nice, smooth sequence of steps" to improve their writing. "First, they need something interesting to grab their attention at 2:30 in the afternoon. Usually it's a product from the real world, something for them to sink their teeth into—a travel brochure, poem, menu, creative story." Calling themselves the Fees Fire Writers, they have even launched a school newspaper, which provides the added motivation of writing for a real audience.
Typically, the ASU tutor presents a writing activity that highlights some facet of the traits, such as voice or word choice. Instead of just making an assignment and turning the student loose to write, however, the tutor takes time to model how she did a similar project. That shows the middle-school student that "any finished piece has been through a long process, including revising and editing," notes Blasingame. "It's important for kids to see that tutors do the same steps, and sometimes even struggle a little."
For the college students, the hands-on experience is a confidence booster. As one ASU student shared in an evaluation of the program: "My limited preparations to be a teacher had never before involved actual students. So a large part of what I have learned from this project is what real students are capable of. They are creative, and funny, and have a unique perspective on the world." Added another: "It was exciting to watch students who were uninterested and apprehensive about writing blossom into eager writers as the semester came to an end."
Veteran teachers often make similar observations when they take a training session to learn about the six traits. Blasingame summarizes teachers' most-common reactions:
One of the most useful aspects of the assessment model, Blasingame says, "is that it provides teachers with a method for teaching revision that's not just about conventions. Students tend to think that rewriting is about correcting spelling or fixing grammar. With the traits, you can walk through the revision process with a model that students can understand. When they're polishing a piece, they can go down the list," looking for ways to improve on each of the traits. As a result, he adds, "You get meaningful revision instead of just proofreading."
Both struggling writers and students who are producing more polished work stand to gain from such informed feedback, Blasingame adds. "If reluctant writers can be more successful, these students become less reluctant to write. An activity that focuses on using a trait or two can help them enjoy that success. And for students who turn in work that's wonderful, the teacher might focus only on the misspelled word and not reward the student for other aspects that are good." The six-trait model "gives teachers a way to recognize what's good in a piece of writing and what needs more work."
Ursula White had been teaching elementary school for about three years when she first encountered the 6+1 Trait™ model. At the time, she was teaching in the Clover Park School District in Washington. A class on the traits was offered as part of a summer professional development institute. That introduction left her eager to start putting the traits to work in her own classroom. "It just made sense to me," she recalls, "It was an 'Aha!' When I went back into my classroom, I started dabbling."
White's enthusiasm spread to the next classroom, where a colleague also began experimenting with the assessment model. Their district gave them both time to observe teachers in the Kent School District where the traits had been implemented districtwide. Says White, "I could see the value of using the same vocabulary to talk about writing across grade levels." She and her colleague needed no more convincing of the model's value. "We just grabbed on and made it our own."
When a family move took White to the other side of the country a few years later, she took her enthusiasm for the traits along with her. At Hartly Elementary near Dover, Delaware, where she was hired in the fall of 1998, "no one had ever heard of the traits." White's new principal stopped in her classroom to observe and found a roomful of third-graders deeply engaged in the revision process. "My principal was amazed at my kids' ability to take a piece of writing that was weak and move it to something stronger, using the strategies and vocabulary of the traits." The principal called White in for a follow-up conference. "She could see the benefits this offered to the whole staff."
With her principal's blessing, White wrote a grant to cover the cost of 6+1 Trait™ training materials and books for the entire faculty, and led her new colleagues in an introduction to the traits. Teachers began meeting after school to talk in more depth about the assessment model. At staff meetings, the principal encouraged teachers to share examples of how they were using the traits across grade levels. "It became a team effort," White says, "not just me on a pulpit. And then it really took off." Teachers began inviting her into their classrooms to model a lesson or coach them in the use of rubrics. "That's when I realized they were on board."
It didn't take long for word to spread beyond the school. When statewide writing assessments were tallied that year, Hartly Elementary third-graders had the highest scores in the state. And when the scores were broken down to the classroom level, White's students emerged as the highest-ranking young writers in Delaware.
Despite her success, White was eager to continue learning more about the traits. She and a Delaware colleague attended an intensive three-day training taught by Ruth Culham. They drew on their deeper understanding as they began to deliver 6+1 Trait™ training throughout their school district. White also was serving on her district's English and Language Arts Committee, and found herself sharing examples of how the model had helped in her teaching and in her personal development as a writer.
After another family move this year, White decided to give up her own classroom and devote her time to training fellow teachers. Through the Delaware Professional Development Center, she has delivered 6+1 Trait™ training to teachers from across the state. She's often in their classrooms, too, coaching and modeling for other teachers as they gain experience using the traits with their students. "Teachers need repetition and classroom examples. You can't get it all from a workshop," White says. She has credibility with other teachers "because they know I've been in the thick of it, in the classroom. I know how busy teachers are. It took a lot of work and development for me to learn about the traits, and other teachers appreciate that."
Although it's been years since her first introduction to the traits, White still gets excited when she sees another teacher experience the same "Aha!" that ignited her own passion. And she's thrilled when she sees a student take on more independence and confidence as a writer. Parents share their enthusiasm for the traits when they hear their children pointing out the excellent word choice in a storybook or focus on improving the sentence fluency in the stories they write at home. "Parents can see their children becoming more confident writers."
In a recent training session, White happened to meet a seventh-grade teacher who had been hearing about the traits from his own students. It turns out that several of them had been in White's class in elementary school. They were eager to talk about word choice, voice, organization, and other elements of good writing as they tackled assignments in middle school. "This will carry with them," White says. "It's a lifelong skill." 
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