Tools To Develop

Better Writers

Peter Bellamy, Gladys Scott, and Michael Kozlow

Tell a Chilean you’re going to catch a guagua and chances are he’ll look at you as if you were crazy. But, say the same thing to a Cuban, and she might advise you to hurry up. That example points out one of the problems in creating Spanish language materials for diverse Spanish speakers. In Chile, guagua means baby, while in Cuba it’s a type of public transportation.

Those kinds of linguistic differences are at the heart of an ambitious project that the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory is undertaking with the Harris County Department of Education in Houston, Texas. Using student samples from some of the county’s 24 indepen-dent school districts, the two collaborators are creating an updated version of NWREL’s The Traits of Effective Spanish Writing. The revised La escritura eficaz en español will be available in fall 2003.

The current Spanish traits, which grew out of work in bilingual classrooms, reflect characteristics particular to the Spanish language: for example, different spelling, grammar, and punctuation conventions and the use of more long sentences. "The new materials will make sure the language represents many different Spanish cultures," according to Michael Kozlow, NWREL’s director of assessment, "and will be designed to honor those differences."

Gladys Vega Scott, an enthusiastic Argentine with a background in linguistics, is excited about developing a program specifically for English language learners."With the advent of No Child Left Behind, it’s even more critical that we contribute to the understanding of culturally diverse students and provide much-needed assessment tools for these learners," she says.

Scott, a trainer who joined NWREL in February, thinks the cosmopolitan Houston metroplex is the perfect partner for this task. Harris County serves more than 700,000 students who represent a virtual United Nations. "Because there’s such a broad spectrum of dialects, the samples will be much richer than if you were dealing with a student population like Oregon’s where Spanish speakers are mainly from Mexico," she notes.

An updated version of La escritura eficaz en español isn’t the only new development in the well-respected 6+1 Trait™ program. The Laboratory has just launched a research project to document the program’s impact on both teachers and students. According to Kozlow, 20 schools will be invited to participate in the controlled study, which will combine training, classroom observation, and work evaluations.

Leading the research effort is another new member of the 6+1 Trait™ training staff. Peter Bellamy joined the Laboratory in March and barely had time to hang pictures in his office before he hit the road. Like Scott, the soft-spoken Englishman brings classroom experience to the job.

As a fifth-grade teacher in Canby, Oregon, Bellamy witnessed firsthand the benefits of the traits program. "Many students can’t free write in any coherent way," observes Bellamy, "but this model gives them the scaffolding to support their writing." It also provides teachers with a structure for approaching the subject and a vocabulary that everyone can share.

For more information about 6+1 Trait™ of Writing Assessment, contact northers@nwrel.org.