Literacy Update

6+1 Traits in Writing 

“Beginning writers benefit from trait-driven instruction because the traits are specific, are easily taught and reinforced, and make sense.” Ruth Culham 6+1 Traits of Writing 2005.

Teachers and students using the same common language from day to day and year to year will develop a strong understanding of writing assessment and writing instruction.

Previously, I shared that IDEAS is the ‘heart of the writer’s message, that ORGANISATION is the ‘architecture of the writing’ and that VOICE is the ‘the magic, the wit, the feeling, the life and breath’.

Today I would like to introduce the 4th Trait, Word Choice.

The 4 Key Qualities that we look for to see if a student is demonstrating strength with WORD CHOICE are: 

As a staff, we looked into the power of VERBS and referred to mentor texts that model where authors use strong verbs, adding that extra strength to their writing. Mentor texts used for writing are pieces of writing that we can share with our students to model examples of strong writing. A mentor text can be a picture story book or just an excerpt from a book or a student’s piece of work, it could be just one page or one sentence. Mentor texts allow staff to show their students what a good example looks like rather than tell them. 

Please see an example of a mentor text ‘Born to Fly’, the staff will be using to model where the author, Beverley McWilliams has used strong verbs below;

Kids News 2023 Short Story Competition

I am so proud of the 20 students from Foundation to Year 6 that chose to participate in the optional Kids News Short Story Writing Competition. I have spoken to a staff member at Kid News who is in charge of the competition, and she expressed how thrilled she was that so many SKiPPS students chose to be a part of the competition. 

Having read all the SKiPPS entries, I commend all participants on their efforts and eagerly await to hear if we have any winners amongst us. If not, it is an amazing achievement to have participated and I congratulate those students for putting forward such fabulous writing. 

Thank you again to the many parents that have been helping all classroom libraries out by contacting so many of our fabulous books. We have made super progress and nearly have all of the books covered. There will be a new batch of books arriving next term, I will put a call out in the newsletter when we have the next pile ready to be covered!

Jac Morphy

Leading Teacher

Literacy