Amy’s Notes from November 7-9, 2007 WIN Conference
The nineteenth annual Fall Writing Conference was full of variety in speakers, topics, and opportunities, all successfully blended into the theme, “Finding Your Voice.” Participants were treated to instruction from Ruth Culham, inspiration from Erin Gruwell, and hilarity from Bruce Littlefield, the three key presenters. As always, there was also a broad range of workshops and concurrent sessions presented by classroom teachers, literacy coaches, college professors, State Department of Education representatives, and local, state, and national consultants. All these voices blended into a memorable three days.
Ruth Culham: The “Six Traits Lady”
Ruth Culham conducted two half-day seminars as pre-conference opportunities. The morning session, although targeted towards primary grades, was worthwhile for teachers at all levels. Ruth’s warmth and humor shone throughout, as when she noted that her first book on the Six Traits Plus One was a “bestseller in professional book land: it was no HARRY POTTER, but it outsold all expectations.” Since its release in 2003, she has worked with the Scholastic Publishing Company to release a second book for primary grades (in her words “scribbles to coherence”) and numerous resource materials ranging from bibliographies of picture books with Six Trait applications to songs, CDs and videos.
Ruth explained that she doesn’t produce materials by grade levels for the simple but important reason that writing ability is not tied to age. She then elaborated on the goals for her materials for the earliest writers. First is the goal of establishing a common language to use in class. Words such as “voice” and “word choice” should be used consistently from kindergarten through all grades, with more intensive, challenging applications as students grow as writers. She observed that American education has always suffered from its focus on coverage rather than in-depth understanding. Six Traits is her best attempt to foster a better way to provide writing instruction.
Ruth’s second goal is to provide a developmental approach to the assessment of writing: not a step-by-step “cookbook” approach but rather recognition of how students learn in spurts. “On demand” assessments are simply not as accurate as assessments over time with young learners. (This writer believes that to be true of older learners, as well.)
Next, Ruth provides skills-related mini-lessons for writing instruction. She stressed that we must turn concepts such as “ideas” and “voice” into teachable skills. For example, using pictures is an effective strategy for generating ideas for writing. She encouraged the audience to begin accumulating several tried-and-true lessons for each of the traits. A fourth goal is to help students learn to revise and edit independently, which is where common language and a rubric come into play.
Being a master teacher who knows the power of demonstration, Ruth then showed how to assess pictures submitted by early writers to tell their “stories.” A drawing of an apple could be addressed by comments on details (an element of the “Ideas” trait.) She told that she is training herself to leave out the word “but” when responding to student work. Instead, she’ll point out strengths and then say “and…” to work in suggestions for improvement. Keeping her responses positive helps to welcome the writers rather than to shut them down with a negative “but” remark. She then showed a mid-year writing product by the apple-artist as an example of how his writing had moved in a positive direction over time. The apple picture had progressed to words, not compound-complex sentences but sense.
Ruth also offered a practical notion of using a folder to preserve writing samples over time and had a suggestion to ease parents’ anxiety over spelling accuracy. She adds a spelling list that she uses consistently three times through the year to show growth.
The afternoon was devoted to grades three and up. Ruth declared that she could only give a “taste of the traits,” but her presentation belied that statement.
She began by explaining that though the rubric stays unchanged throughout the later grades, anchor papers at different grade levels keep the rubric accurate and reliable. Unlike the developmental model used with the youngest writers, upper grades use a performance assessment which provides a clear target showing the best (a “five”) and how close to it different ratings come, “four” down to “one.” She stressed that the goals for writing don’t change by grade or even genre; all good writing will contain the same traits.
Ruth showed a quote from Harold Hodgkinson: “We must change from a model that picks winners to one that will create winners.” This sentiment captures the essential difference between large-scale assessment and classroom assessment. The Six Traits program provides a model to help students write well AND perform well on standardized tests. “Rank and sort” is the goal of state assessments, even South Carolina’s PACT and HSAP, which are based on writing domains (traits). Six Traits looks a bit different from the state rubric because the Traits system is designed for classroom assessment and to guide instruction. Success on the Six Traits rubric will naturally lead to success on the state’s 15-point rubric.
Another strength of the Six Traits program is that it fosters substantive revision during the writing process. All too often revision resembles a “soft wall of fog.” The Traits program provides concrete, specific areas to work on.
Ruth took a few moments to explain what Six Traits is not: a writing curriculum, a silver bullet, a quick fix, or a smooth fit with a worksheet-dependent environment. She warned that there is simply no transfer from the worksheet to writing products, since the worksheet is not an authentic writing task. She did agree that there is a place for worksheets as in review or extra practice, but that they should never be considered a viable writing program. She continued that Six Traits program is not meant to be learned in a 1-2 hour seminar, but that teachers should try bits at the time and build on those.
Ruth then spoke about what the Six Traits program is. For one, it is time-tested. First introduced in 1985, the program has become more widespread each year. She noted that twenty years is a long time in “education years.” It also is a common language to describe good writing. Six Traits is an assessment program above all else, and she stressed we must assess before launching instruction if we are to meet the needs of the students. However, the Traits program is an integral part of the writing process, which is instructional.
Elaborating on the connections with the writing process, Ruth said, “Prewriting” involves the traits of ideas and organization; “drafting” is the sentence fluency area: get it down!; “conferencing” can involve all of the traits. However, she said that a key to successful peer editing is instructing students to stick to one trait per session. Otherwise, they get bogged down in generalities (more of that “soft fog.”) “Revising” is the time to rework for clarity of ideas, organization, voice, word choice, and sentence fluency; “editing” is time for conventions (spelling, capitals, punctuation, grammar, paragraphing.) She warned us to weave those conventions throughout the year, for the benefit of students and teachers. The final trait, “Plus One: Presentation,” relates to the publication stage of the writing process. Any concerns that the Traits program conflicts with Process were surely allayed by now.
Ruth then explained that assigning traits by grade levels is much like teaching someone how to drive a car one skill at the time. The focus should be on improved writing, not on mastering traits in isolation. Writing uses all traits simultaneously, but as teachers we must devote time to each one to build understanding and competence. Ruth advises that we spend one week on each trait in the beginning of the year, and then recycle using mini-lessons over time and as the need arises.
Anyone familiar with the Six Traits books will recall the student paper “Redwoods,” a classic example of writing that is correct but so bland it says basically nothing. Ruth demonstrated the contrast between “Redwoods” and “Fox,” a paper full of voice, details, ideas, and value despite its frequent craft errors. She called it a “diamond in the rough,” and used it to clarify what our goals should be for our students. She suggested that instead of the sometimes vague advice to “show, not tell,” we tell students to think of the difference between snorkeling, where you just skim the surface, and scuba diving, where you go deep into the topic.
Next Ruth gave us a closer look at each trait. “Ideas” is the trait that never ends, as the writer can always add more and better details to a piece. “Voice” is the writer’s personal stamp. She warned us to avoid calling it “personality,” but instead to describe voice as “energy,” “warmth,” or “draw.” She also noted that the top five percent of papers on any assessment always score well on “Voice.” “Organization” is the internal structure of the piece. “Word choice” is how we create voice. “Sentence fluency” is what creates flow (rhythm, fluency) that allows for good oral reading. “Conventions” are what they have always been, except that they are not the only focus in sound writing instruction.
Ruth then discussed scoring strategies. She said that you should go for the score that is defensible, not correct. Ask yourself if the trait is strong and if so, look at the qualities of a “5” and eliminate the “1” and “2” scores. If the trait is weak, start at the bottom and ignore the top two. When going over the scores with the student, use only one or two bullets from the rubric to avoid confusion. Providing clarifying remarks along with the score provides a path to improvement. Remember to compliment on the strengths and to provide improvement avenues with an “and” instead of a “but.”
A score of “3” indicates a balance of strengths and needs, while a “2” or a “4” shows a mix of qualities of surrounding scores. Ruth acknowledged the challenge of dealing with the huge range of abilities in any classroom. She advised moving students along one step at the time and attempting to teach at least one writing “trick” a day. For example, when a student selects a topic that is too broad to address well, the “Narrow it” activity is a “trick” that can help. Divide students into two teams, with one side calling out general topics such as “animals” and the other team responding with a specific aspect such as “sea animals,” and bouncing back and forth with ever more narrow topics. As they trade ideas, write the lists on an overhead transparency or the white board. This technique helps students build a schema for excavating effective topics.
Ruth advised us that teaching writing is not about papers but about students. She said that when you reach the end of the writing process and the paper is finished, you should put the grade and just one comment on the paper, as everything else should have been addressed during the paper’s development. The students are not going to want to touch the paper again, and you’ll be exhausted writing lengthy comments that nobody will appreciate, so let it go.
In true best practice fashion, Ruth ended her day with a read aloud of Linda Rowe Fraustino’s picture book THE HICKORY CHAIR. Just as the main character finds his validation late in life, we teachers can anticipate looking back on our day with Ruth Culham as an experience that profoundly benefited our practice. Ruth is truly a hard act to follow, so it’s fortunate that Ellen James had successfully snagged Erin Gruwell to provide the keynote for Thursday.
Erin Gruwell
Anyone who saw the movie FREEDOM WRITERS, based on writings of Erin’s students, had huge expectations of this gifted young teacher, and they were not disappointed. Erin brought her students to life by detailing her first days of anguish through the present, where every one of her one hundred and fifty “forgotten” students have finished high school and are headed to college.
Erin instinctively knew from the beginning that she had to find a common thread to unify her hostile, segregated camps of students. She also had to find ways for them to connect personally with the stories in books, and to see themselves differently from how society saw them. Her goal was to use the stories of Anne Frank and Elie Weisel to find new heroes and to find their own voices by writing their life stories just as those faraway young people had. Erin’s students could be heroes, themselves, by making positive changes in the world around them instead of blindly following the path to nowhere.
FREEDOM WRITERS is proof that you can write your way to freedom. It also has a huge ripple effect, in that all money raised from the book sales and Erin’s appearances pays for those students to further their educations and for many, to become teachers.
Since this writer didn’t have the “freedom” to attend the entire conference, these notes must stop before capturing day two’s keynoter, Bruce Littlefield. Rumor has it that he had the crowd laughing just as easily as Erin had them crying and Ruth had them smiling. He was, then, a sure hit.
Amy Mikell
WIN Consultant
USC Intern Supervisor