Why Teach Writing!?

The benefit of teaching students writing skills from an early age are mostly
on academic success across the curriculum. Studies have proved that
students, who are able to master writing skills early, struggle less in overall
literacy and communicating. Increased writing instruction that focuses not
merely on penmanship (the art or skill of writing by hand), but on writing
strategies, planning, and organization, can benefit students for the rest of
their lives. Even prior to this, increased confidence with writing skills can
help students to be more effective in communicating their understanding
of core curriculum and learning standards, allowing students to better
demonstrate their knowledge across the curriculum and to express their
concerns and questions in a way to help further their personal
understanding. Effective writing is a vital life-skill that is important in
almost every subject in school as well in the work world.
Do as I say, not as I do!
 Have you ever heard the expression,
“Do as I say, not as I do?”
Perhaps a parent or older sibling has
said that to you if you have ever caught
them doing something that they had told
you not to do. Well, I’m about to say
that phrase to you today!
Get your students to know
Strategies for Writing
A writing strategy is a series of actions (mental,
physical, or both) that writers undertake to achieve
their goals. Strategies help students generate content
and carry out components of the writing process.
Students should acquire specific strategies for each
component of the writing process. Many strategies can
be used to assist students with more than one
component.
• Break down the writing process into components.
• Introduce students to the components of the writing
process: planning, drafting, sharing, evaluating,
revising, editing, and publishing (see graphic below).
• Students should
learn to move easily
back and forth
between components
of the writing process,
often altering their
plans and revising
their text along the
way.
Get your students to know

Writing Purposes
Writing is used for a variety of purposes, such as
conveying information, making an argument, providing
a means for self-reflection, sharing an experience,
enhancing understanding of reading, or providing
entertainment. Understanding different writing
purposes helps students adjust their writing to be most
effective.
Teach students that different genres of writing serve
different purposes.
• Teach students about different genres of writing that fit specific
purposes, such as to describe, narrate, inform, persuade, or analyze.
• Explain how the features of a genre serve the purpose of the text.
For example:
• A short story includes a description of characters, places, and events,
which serves the author’s purpose of telling a story that is interesting to
the reader.
• Instructions include an ordered list of steps, which serves the author’s
purpose of informing the reader about how to do something.
• Relate genres to real-world scenarios to help students understand
when and how to use certain genres.
Ask students to practice selecting a genre and composing text to
serve a specific purpose.
Expand students’ concept of audience

• Design writing activities that naturally lend themselves

to different audiences.
• Help students generate a list of potential audiences for
a given writing assignment. Students then can choose the
audience that best fits their writing topic.
• Encourage students to practice writing about the same
topic for different audiences, to develop the skill of
adjusting tone and word choice to suit the audience. For
example:
• When writing
persuasive letters,
students could
practice writing to
parents, friends,
or teachers.
• When writing a
narrative, students
could practice
writing a short
story for a
magazine or a
fable for a
preschool class
Provide a list of evaluation criteria to help
students review and revise their sentences
• Introduce students to evaluation criteria to help them assess
sentences based on meaning, style, and grammar. For example:
• Clarity
• Intended audience
• Demonstrate how to revise a sentence if it does not meet
the evaluation criteria. For example, identify missing parts,
incorrect punctuation, wordiness, or words that are too simple
or complex for the intended audience.
Review students’
work using these
criteria. For older
students, ask
them to use these
criteria to review
one another’s
work.
(Peer Correction)
How to Use the Six Traits of Writing
The Six Traits is primarily an evaluative tool. However, teachers
also use it as a tool that helps guide numerous aspects of writing
instruction: e.g., lessons, discussions, instruction, feedback,
analysis, and more. Unfortunately, when you look at a Six Traits
rubric, it doesn’t tell you how to teach writing.
Both writing and teaching writing are active. Fortunately, the Six
Traits is an active tool, and asking questions is an active tool. If a
teacher can ask questions like those that follow below, they will
certainly be able to teach writing effectively across the curriculum.
Think about it: We have writing in front of us all day long in all of
the books we read and in all of our students’ writing. We have
plenty of writing available to us that we can ask six-trait questions
about. For this reason, I present the Six
 Trait 1: Ideas and Content:
Does the piece of writing have a clear, high-quality overall
message or point?
Are the details relevant and important, and do they
effectively support the main ideas? Do the main ideas
effectively support the main message? Are the details, the
main ideas, and the main message all important,
necessary, interesting, and novel?
 Trait 2: Organization:

Is there a clear hierarchy of ideas? Is that hierarchy made clear with

the use of appropriate structural techniques: title, headings, thesis
statement, controlling idea, main ideas, and topic sentences? Do the
paragraphs have a clear purpose within the context of the whole
composition? Is the order logical? Is the sequence effective? Are
effective patterns of organization used in the overall structure and
the paragraphs? Does the writer use compare-contrast, cause-effect,
pro-con, chronological order, order based on importance, and other
common thought patterns to make things clear to the reader? Is the
organizational structure communicated with an effective use of
transitions?
 Trait 3: Voice:

Does the piece of writing contain an original, unique,

or exciting expression of words and ideas? Is there a
real person behind the words and ideas who cares
about the topic and is interested in the topic? Is the
writer excited about what he or she is
communicating? Can the reader tell? Does the writer
fall into the trap of breaking grammar rules to create
voice?
 Trait 4: Word Choice:

Does the writer use the best words, the most

effective words, the right words, to express ideas
clearly, concisely, creatively, and effectively? Does
the writer avoid the overuse of tired and boring
words?
 Trait 5: Sentence Fluency:
Do the strings of sentences have rhythm and flow?
Does the effective use of transitions help keep the
reader reading? Does the effective use of a variety
of sentence lengths and sentence structures help
to keep the reader reading? Does the writing have
flow?
 Trait 6: Conventions:

Does the writer adhere to the commonly accepted

rules of writing? Is the grammar, spelling,
punctuation, and capitalization all correct? Is the
paragraphing effective?
As you can see, the Six Traits model helps teachers
move away from focusing solely on grammar and
mechanics, and it helps teachers to see pieces of
writing as a whole. Teachers can get quite far in
improving student writing by using a few generic Six
Traits checklists and rubrics with their students, along
with teaching writing skills, and along with providing
plenty of opportunities for their students to write.
Furthermore, by using the Six Traits model, teachers
can more easily score student writing holistically. This
means that teachers can assess more papers quickly
and hold students accountable across the curriculum.
Let’s practice
these 6 traits on
actual examples of
students’ writings
Grade 3 Student
Grade 6 Student
Grade 10 Student
Grade 10 Student
Introduction:
I know of about seven different creative ways to grab attention in an introduction, but I won’t
encourage those here. Yet, it is important that you have an introduction of some kind. What should
and shouldn’t be included?
As some of you may already know, the typical order of an essay’s introduction paragraph is:

Attention-grabber/hook
Link/Transition into thesis
Thesis statement
Transition into first body paragraph

However, a “lengthy preambles” are no longer preferred. Those tend to cause students to write a
paragraph that is too “long and unfocused.”
Instead, you should eliminate the first two typical steps and get right to your thesis, which should
show that you understand the prompt, without leaving out any key words.
Body Paragraph:
There is a certain kind of student who thinks that, because of the nature of an English course, you can
go into an essay and bluff your way through it.
“I’ll just improvise,” they say. “I’m good at talking, and I know how to ‘dance around’ a subject
and ‘sound smart.’ I do it all the time.”
Well, I hate to break it to those folks, but the evaluators are one step ahead of them. They are well
aware of their techniques.

The typical order of an essay’s body paragraph is:

1. Topic sentence(s)
2. Contextual set-up for your evidence
3. Evidence that supports your view
4. Analysis of that evidence
5. Transition into your next paragraph
Conclusion:
People have been teaching students how to write formal essays for as long as there have
been schools. We’re talking over a century, OK? And I’m willing to bet that the very first
teacher told the very first writing class to summarize their points in their conclusion
paragraph. Well, I’m here to tell you that this tradition stops here!

Essay conclusion needs to be more interesting, more thoughtful, and more advanced.

Conclusions need to show a learning curve, provoke thought, and/or expand upon the
broader implications of the ideas discussed in the essay.
By doing this, we will take our ideas from simple summarization
to the next level. To do that, we have to explore one of the
following.

Option 1: Future
Can you give us a reason to have hope that the problem at the heart of your
debate will get better? Or a reason to believe that we should proceed with
cautious optimism?
Or a reason for us to be more cynical? Should it never change, how about a
reason to feel more at peace with the situation?

Option 2: Lesson
If there was an obvious lesson that the reader (or you, the writer) were supposed to learn
about your thesis—whether it’s about our world or about ourselves— is there a reason why
people don’t seem to be learning it? What’s blocking people from learning it? Are ideological
purists making “good” the enemy of “perfect?”
Option 3: Solution
What are we supposed to do now? If the obvious solution is to simply make
something illegal/legal, stating that isn’t enough. Make a suggestion as to
why it isn’t that simple. Who/what is blocking your solution, and what will it
take to unblock it? And once that blockage is cleared, will everything be
perfect in the world, or will it just push us into the next phase of the
debate? And what is that phase?

Option 4: Consequences
Why should anybody care about the stance you took on your thesis? Can you
give us a reason to scare us into action? Should we fear the consequences of
inaction? How about impending unintended consequences? Is there a larger
correlation to draw?