Evaluate the Writing Using the Six Traits Model
When you click below to open the document in a new window, you will see three writing samples from three different students in the same 3rd grade class. The samples are the result of a timed, narrative pre-test from the beginning of the year. The students were asked to write a narrative about a time when they experienced something surprising, scary, or unexpected. [NOTE: I retyped these samples just as they were written so that handwriting didn’t play a role in your ability to read them. Thus, there is no reason to evaluate these samples for the “Presentation” trait.]
Step 1 – Use the rubrics found in the Week 14 Readings to informally evaluate each sample in relation to Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions. (There is nothing written for this step – just take some time to observe the writing in relation to each trait.)
Step 2 – Based on your informal evaluation, identify 1 strength and 1 opportunity in each sample. For this step, you must:
Comment on all three pieces of writing.
Have a minimum of 6 total annotations.
Have at least one annotation for each of the six traits.
Tag your annotations using the following labels: Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions.
Step 3 – Drawing on the chapter by Katherine Bomer in the Week 15 Readings, use “long language” to crack open the six traits and respond “with eyes for the beauty and brilliance that exists in every piece.” The idea here is to imagine what you might say if you were talking directly to the student during a writing conference. For this step, you must:
Provide “long language” annotations in response to at least two students.
Explain why this makes sense for this student. (NOTICE: I did not include conventions in there. Teachers are quick to point out how conventions could be improved, but you must go beyond that to really help writers grow.) you must identify a specific element within a trait so that the suggestion would be manageable for the student.
Tag your annotations with the label – long language.
(For example, instead of saying “a next step for this student is to work on conventions,” you would need to be specific, such as “A next step for this student is to work on using end punctuation at the end of every sentence because they currently have end punctuation on just one of the five sentences they wrote.” Of course, you will not use conventions as your next step, but the example should help you to see how you can get more specific than just the trait itself.)
Week 14 Rubric:
Setting the Purpose
This week, we will be working with the “Traits of Writing” model. It was developed by Education Northwest and then popularized for classroom use by writing expert Ruth Culhum. It is designed to provide common language (for both students and teachers) around the qualities of good writing. There are seven traits that each have a corresponding rubric to provide guidance on the “look fors” for each trait and how to consider the traits across a continuum of quality. As with all of the literacy assessments we have learned about this semester, this is a formative assessment tool designed to provide information about students’ strengths and next steps for instruction.
Text #1
Chapter 1 of Teach Writing Well: How to Assess Writing, Invigorate Instruction, and Rethink Revision by Ruth Culham is linked for you below. It introduces you to the “Traits of Writing” model, providing an explanation of each trait as well as key indicators for each trait.
Culham – Teach Writing Well Ch. 1 Download Culham – Teach Writing Well Ch. 1
Text #2
Ruth Culham’s website (Links to an external site.) includes numerous resources. Among them are rubrics for assessing writing samples using the “Traits of Writing” model. (These rubrics are also included in her book.) The set of rubrics linked below are those used for grades 3 – 12. (If you are wanting to see what they might look like in a “student-friendly” format or what the primary set of rubrics look like, visit Culham’s website (Links to an external site.).) One thing I want to make clear is that these rubrics are used for formative assessment. They should help us decide what next instructional steps to take with individuals or groups of writers. That is why we can use them across grades. We know that the expectations for word choice at the 3rd grade level are going to be very different than the expectations for a high schooler, or even a fifth grader. We use the rubrics as a way to develop a common vocabulary around the qualities of good writing; however, those conversations with students will develop in sophistication as they continue to develop as writers.
G3-12+Scoring+Guide+Teacher.pdf Download G3-12+Scoring+Guide+Teacher.pdf
Text #3
The pages linked below are excerpted from Teach Writing Well: How to Assess Writing, Invigorate Instruction, and Rethink Revision by Ruth Culham. They provide examples of how the rubrics are applied to different writing samples.
Culham – Rubric Examples Download Culham – Rubric Examples
Week 15 Reading:
In Week 14, you learned about some traits that you can use to examine a piece of writing. This week we are going to turn our focus from the writing itself to the writer on the other end. How can we respond to writers to recognize and celebrate the effort and skill the writer has demonstrated, while also providing next steps for growth in a way that is encouraging and supportive?
This week’s reading assignment is from a book called, Hidden Gems: Naming and Teaching from the Brilliance in Every Student’s Writing by Katherine Bomer. Chapter 4 of this book (linked for you below) is titled, “How Can We Use New Language to Effectively Speak to Kids about Quality in Writing?” In this chapter, Bomer makes the case that we need “long language” to talk about writing and that we should speak to young writers “as a person who loves to read a lot of different things.” To help facilitate that kind of talk around writing and with writers, Bomer “cracks open” the top six writing rubric words (i.e. the traits of writing you learned about in Week 14). Then, she shares robust ways to name and teach each of the traits so that we can recognize and celebrate the hard work of making thinking visible on paper, while also helping writers to learn and grow.
Hidden Gems_Chapter 4 Download Hidden Gems_Chapter 4
If you feel like you still need some examples to help you understand how you might respond “with eyes for the beauty and brilliance that exists in every piece,” then check out some of the snippets of student writing and Bomer’s response to them in the pages linked below (pp. 99 – 104) from Hidden Gems. Here is the brief introduction to these pages:
“For the next few pages, I offer an overview of what I mean by the delightful snippets of young people’s writing, the kinds of lines or sentences that teachers easily find when I ask them to look through their kids’ work to read aloud some places they admire. Here, we will simply celebrate. This will give us some practice naming qualities with long language.” (p. 98)
Hidden Gems_pp. 99 – 104
The assessment example will be attached.
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