Six Traits Connection to Six Theories

The Six Traits of writing is a program originally created by Vicki Spandel at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratories (NREL). The Six Traits that she focused on were ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. After developing this program she left the company and sought employment else where. When she left NREL she was aloud to bring the name of the program she developed and nothing else. Ruth Culham continued Vicki’s work after she left, but with a new name, the 6+1 Traits of Writing. NREL still had all of Vicki’s research and the programs are almost identical because of it. The only difference if that in Ruth’s version the +1 is for the added trait of presentation, which applies only to formal writing and final copies.
Since the development of these programs many schools have implemented the Six Traits into their curriculum, and have done so in response to many theories of reading writing and thinking. These theories include: the emphasis of process over production, the importance of ideas over conventions, cooperative learning leading to independence, problem posing versus banking, hierarchy of developmental writing, and teaching connected to assessment. These are the 6 theories connected to the six traits of writing.
The six traits of writing are taught by focusing on each trait for a period of six weeks, except for conventions which is worked on throughout the writing process. The process is one where the traits build on each other, one trait leads to the next. The six traits were developed so that students and teachers would have a common language to discuss the writing process. Although defining these terms is important in the sense that there is a commonality in discussing them, it is important to know that the book encourages discussion and developing these definitions with the students.
Ideas are the main message or topic of the piece. It is what all of the other information in the paper will support and the paper should maintain its focus on this idea. For example in the this research paper the idea is to show what the six traits are, how they are related to different theories of reading writing and thinking, and how it is used in a classroom. All of the details should support these ideas and this should help the paper to maintain its focus. A way to encourage the development and creation of these ideas is to ask students to use “observations, stories, questions, and comments that young writers have about life.”(Culham). It is important though, that these ideas be organized in a way that makes sense to the reader and accurately portrays the point of the writer.
Organization is the structure of the writing. It is how the writer chooses to present the information. Organization can come in the form of sequential order, grouping information based on connections, having a beginning, middle and an end, using conjunctions, and sequencing words or even making a list. Once the story is organized it should have a certain quality that indicates to readers that this author has a unique way of writing.
Voice is saying something that is important to you and relating it to your own life experiences. It is your own perspective and interpretation of events or facts. Voice is emotion and thoughts, its confidence and awareness of audience and purpose. This trait is about originality and letting the students creativity and individuality really shine through.
To help create that voice, sometimes it is about choosing the right words.
Word choice is not about picking the longest or fanciest word a student can find, but it is about finding just the right word. It is about using more than the usual nouns, verbs, and adjectives; it is also about knowing just the right word to clearly express the ideas of the writer. Word choice is about precision it is about communicating ideas so clearly that the reader visualizes exactly what the writer intended. With in this decision of which words to choose purpose, audience, and voice are all taken into consideration. For all of these traits to work to create a readable piece the writer must have a sense of flow with in their work.
In order for a piece to have flow and phrasing and to avoid run-ons and short choppy sentences there needs to be a sense of sentence fluency. This trait is about creating sentences of varying length and style. It is about phrasing and quality of work. Sentence fluency is also about transitional words so that sentences flow into one another and they have some semblance of organization and intentionality.
Within all of these traits are conventions which are practiced through out the writing process, but not as a focus. It is something to be worked on throughout the process and in small pieces. It is not the entire paper. One revision can include spelling, the next punctuation, and capitalization and these conventions can be tied into the trait that is being worked on at that time. Word choice can be connected to spelling and sentence fluency to punctuation, capitalization to organization and so on. Conventions should never be the entire focus of a student’s piece, because it is not what creates good writing. The other five traits are good writing, conventions just ensuring that your message is clear to the reader. These six traits are the foundation of the writing program and process.
The Six Traits of Writing attempts to focus on the process as much as the product. The program is about the product being an accurate reflection of the process. In the article “A Cognitive Process Theory and Writing”, Linda Flower and John Hayes, discuss coming to critical conscieceness or conscienticazao. Put more simply it is thinking about thinking. Flower and Hayes talk about the connection of the audience and the purpose of writing. This is going to directly affect all six traits. This point is illustrated in “Lynn Profile of a Twelfth-Grade Writer” by Janet Emig. The choices that Lynn made about things as simple as her topic of her piece was greatly influenced by who she assumed her readers would be. She didn’t want to write about things that were too emotionally significant to her for fear of an uncomfortable writing experience. Lynn also struggles with past experiences of teachers focusing on conciseness. The Six Traits of Writing gives teachers multiple focuses so that there is always a strength for a writer to pull from. The writing process should be about rewriting not just about making correction. This connects to the idea that with in the Sis Traits program teachers are not to take six weeks and just focus on conventions it is something that is worked on slowly over time, so that the focus can be about rewriting and not just fixing little grammatical errors. Flower and Hayes describe writing as a goal directed process. Everything is tied together and is constantly changing to account for new information. The writer begins by generating ideas and organizing them. The changes that occur because of new information are tied to the other traits. A writer may change word choices based on new information about the audience. A writer may really hone in on their own sense of voice because of a personal connection, they discover, to their topic. With this focus on the process there is also a focus on the ideas and the writing itself as more important than the grammatical errors in a piece.
In Bean’s book Engaging Ideas, in chapter 2 entitled “How Writing is Related to Critical Thinking” he discusses how an over focus of grammar in writing can stifle creativity. It is important to know that good writing is more about the ideas and the organization and expression of those ideas than it is in being grammatically correct. This is not to say that grammar is not important, but it is easier to fix than the less technical pieces that go into writing. It is easy to write a sentence that is grammatically correct. It is even easy to write a paragraph that is grammatically correct, but just because it is correct grammatically doesn’t mean that is makes sense. This tendency to hyper- focus on conventions has grave implications for students of writing. In Shaughnessy’s “Introduction to Errors and Expectations”, she looks at a college that is forced to accept all the graduating senior of their state. With in this student population is a wide range of knowledge about the conventions of writing. In her writing she demonstrates how these students can still have intelligent ideas and have great potential as writers despite some of their short comings. This is exactly what the Six Traits is about. It is about finding your strength as a writer and using it to compensate for your weaknesses. It is about valuing all the pieces that go in to making a written piece, not just one, and giving each student a chance to shine. Each student’s ability to write is going to be tied to cognitive development and a hierarchy of understanding.
Each trait is tied to one another. Although you can have success in one trait without success in another, to have truly have mature writing you ideally need all six traits. This directly relates to Wiggins and McTighe’s 6 facets of understanding. Facet one is explanation. Being able to explain something that you understand is like creating and idea that you can write about. You need to have enough understanding to be able to explain or write your idea. Interpretation is being able to explain the application of an idea or being able to organize it in a way that makes sense. Word choice is being able to apply your knowledge of language in choosing the precise word to convey your meaning. In order to have perspective you have to have your own truth and be able to deliver through truth in your own voice. Empathy is the ability to connect to others through self experiences, and although it is a stretch, sentence fluency is being able to write in a way that is pleasant for others to read. Finally self knowledge is knowing how ones self interferes with the ability to fully understand and as a writer when you understand your own weaknesses you can therefore always have a goal of how to make your writing better. All of these facets and traits are tied to one another so tightly that often with success in one comes naturally a success in another. The “Six Facts of Understanding” are about assessing how we think and understand just as the Six Traits of Writing are about assessing how we write.
Faulkerson in his “Four Philosophies of Composition” looks are how teaching should be connected to assessment. In this program that is exactly what has been done. The program comes complete with not only how to teach each trait, but also how to assess each trait with a prewritten rubric on a scale from 1-5. Next to each number is a description of what the students should have in their writing in order to earn that mark. These stages are labeled: ready to begin, exploring, expanding, extending, and established. When the student is beyond established they are ready to move to the next grade level of the traits. The teaching procedures should directly connected to the evaluative theories and there should be a rubric to alleviate any confusion and students know what to expect, is the theory that Faulkerson discusses and is clearly defined in the Six Traits.
When teaching these traits the program looks at a collaborative approach between the teacher and student. These traits should not be taught as a lecture, but something for students to explore and discover through their own writing and their own ideas of good writing they have written or read. This teaching philosophy is consistent with that of Freire and the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. In this article he discuss the impact of “banking” as a form of teaching. “Banking” is the process of dumping information in to a student and the student’s responsibility is to regurgitate the information. Students need to generalize information, ask questions, engage in discussion, and create idea of their own in order to truly gain a mature understanding. There should be room for creativity and individuality. Each trait is given six full weeks with in the program, there is some flexibility in this depending on the students and their understanding. In these six weeks is time to explore, delve in, question, create, and make mistakes with just one topic at a time. This lends itself automatically to the idea of students discovering answers for themselves. This concept of exploration and collaboration is yet one more way the Six Traits connects with theories of reading, writing and thinking.
Collaborative learning is very obviously people working together to reach a higher level of understanding as well as a high level of independence. Bruffee said that through interdependence we can become independent. In his piece on collaborative learning he explores the limitations of thought, because it only allows for one experience, and it is only through conversation that we can gain experience from others. Because thinking is conversation collaborative learning is natural. The Six Traits includes collaborative learning though discussion of what the traits mean as well as conferences about the students writing. These conferences are not just between student and teacher, but are between students and student as well. Often times it is easier for students to come up with ideas about writing other than their own. Sometimes students are too connected to their own writing to create ideas about what step should be next. One students weakness maybe another’s strength, what they have to offer each other is much more than they could hope to find on their own. These skills that students develop from working with one another are skills that they will later be able to apply when there is not chance for collaboration. The more experiences they have with others, the more experiences they will have for reference when those conversations are no longer available to them.
It is clear that the Six Traits connects to many theories in reading writing and thinking. It is not a response to any one problem consistent in teaching, but it is implemented to find a balance between a myriad of pedagogical practices. The program is about finding the balance on the pendulum of education and theories surrounding writing. It is not a scripted program that is without flexibility and individuality. It is a base from which to form the program to fit all writers, no matter what their level or what their strengths. There is always room for growth and improvement and all students have something to offer. It is about creating a community of writer and thinkers that do more than sit, absorb, regurgitate and fix. They engage, explore, discover, discuss, and reach a level of true understanding. This is at least the hopes and dreams of where this program stemmed. It is still the responsibility of the teacher and the student to realize this potential.