Writing Traits! 😕 What's That? Blog #6

    Hi guys, greetings and blessings to you. Please forgive me for abandoning you these past couple of weeks. Man, it has been a tough trying to find balance among the raging seas of assignments that have been literally consuming me. But nevertheless, I am back!  This week we did quite a bit writing. We looked at the stages of writing development and also writing traits. I came across the stages of writing in previous course but never the writing traits. This one stood out for me. To be honest the first time I heard about writing traits, I was a bit baffled. You know, in the back of my mind when you heard the word traits, you will think of a key attribute about oneself that makes you, you. So, I was really curious about this writing trait business. Have you heard of it before? Well, our lecturer encouraged us to do some digging. Then she divided the students into groups and gave each group a trait to present on.  This was a great idea, because the internet is so pregnant with information that researching can be a bit burdensome. However, the groups did a fantastic job of breaking each trait down nicely.

    So, writing traits, what really is that. I learned that The Six Plus Trait as it is rightfully referred to as, serves as a method of instructing, demonstrating and evaluating writing skills. The Six Traits of writing are Voice, Ideas, Presentation, Conventions, Organization, Word Choice, and Sentence Fluency. Good writing must have these six traits. These traits give teachers and students a shared language and rules for writing. It makes it easier for students and the readers to understand what is being talked about. With this model, teachers and students can focus on specific parts of writing, bit by bit. As such, it makes it easier for the students to learn and provides the avenue for teachers to give clear feedback on how the students are doing with their writing. Below is a synopsis of what these traits entail.

Check out this video for further explanation.

Pretty simple don't you think? I think it is off vital importance that students learn about the writing traits. Think about it, at school, you were told either to restructure this sentence or this sentence is too long, but were you ever taught how? or use another word to convey meaning, but did your teacher teach you about transitional words or vocabulary words that can be used to convey stronger meanings? I wasn't. This is why I believe if students are taught these traits, they would be exceptional writers. As a matter of fact, I don't think many teachers really know about writing traits at this magnitude, so justice is not served in terms of execution. I am one of those teachers. While being taught the writing traits, I was so amazed at how these simple terms can unfold and make a tremendous impact on one's writing. For example, I never paid so much attention to the length of the sentences. Now I understand that one must have a variety of sentence lengths in order to encourage fluency. What makes this thing so remarkable is they are all important. If students do not have ideas, then how are they able to write? When they write they must be able to organise and structure their writing for it to make sense. They must have suitable word choices along with some flavour to get readers hooked on their piece of writing. Sentence fluency and convections must be included for the reader to receive the message the way it was intended. And off course, presentation. How would you publish your writing if you don't present it. So, this thing makes a lot of sense. Teachers, parents, let's help our children become better writers by teaching them these traits. If you have started, kudos to you, keep reviewing it with them. If you are like me who have just learned about it, great, it's not too late to make a start. Let's teach the kids.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear it. Please place your comments in the comment section below.