March/April 2002 | NW REPORT

Complete Guide to

6+1 Trait™ Writing

by Suzie Boss

Writing is hard work. Just ask Ruth Culham, the Laboratory’s globe-trotting expert in writing assessment who helps teachers around the world acquire strategies for creating stronger writers. Culham is putting her research-based ideas down on paper for a new book, working hard on the revising and editing steps that are all part of the process.

Her forthcoming book, 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide, will be published by Scholastic Inc. in October. Written for teachers of students in grades three through 12, the book explains instructional strategies and suggests classroom activities to turn students into more competent, confident writers.

Although Culham draws on nearly 20 years of educational assessment research, she writes in a style that is anything but ponderous. Stories from her own life and scenes from real classrooms make the passages sparkle. "It’s been a joyous process" to write the book, Culham says.

The book opens with a history of the 6+1 Trait™ model, which grew out of a grassroots movement. Teachers who taught writing were growing frustrated by multiple-choice assessments that tended to focus only on mechanics. Says Culham: "They began asking: What is good writing? What are the parts and pieces, the criteria of quality writing?" Teachers 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.

Culham’s book devotes a chapter to each of the traits, explaining what they mean and how to use teaching strategies to target specific criteria. Student writing samples illustrate these ideas, giving teachers a feel for how to use the traits in whole-class or individualized instruction. By using the traits and scoring guide in their writing instruction, teachers provide students with concrete information to keep the quality of their writing improving.

"Students become more independent learners," says Culham. "They get more involved in assessing their own work, peer editing, and revising and improving their work. They wind up taking more ownership of learning to write well."

Watch for the book’s release in the fall of 2002 by visiting the Web sites for Amazon (www.amazon.com), Barnes & Noble (www.barnesandnoble.com), or Scholastic Inc. (www.scholastic.com), or call (800) Scholastic.

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