Improving Student Writing Skills - cse crafts

Teaching Using the Traits of Good Writing
The Traits of Good Writing in
Instruction
While the basis of the Traits of Good Writing is an
assessment rubric, you may also use the traits while
instructing.
Differentiation Using the Trait Assessment Data
Once you have assessed, you can use the scores to choose
lessons that are relevant to each student (Betts, 2004).
You might ask the student who had the lowest-scoring
trait to take special care with this trait on the next
project or provide the student with extra practice on the
trait. You can also use the traits to differentiate on a perclass
basis. For example, you may notice that your class’s
use of word choice lags behind other scores. In this case,
you may choose to target the class with a lesson on word
choice.
The same is true of choosing small groups. No longer do
we designate “bluebirds,” “redbirds,” and “finches” for
groups based on reading level (Caldwell & Ford, 2002).
Today’s small group is flexible, convened perhaps just
for a few minutes in the course of one class period. In
the next class period, you might create different groups
altogether. Using the traits, if you notice that, for example,
three students struggle with their use of ideas, you
might pull them aside for a little extra help while other
students are working independently.
However, differentiating isn’t always easy. Like yesteryear’s
one-room schoolhouse, we have many different
instructional levels in our classrooms, and we need to
find ways to teach each of these levels within our existing
frameworks (Tomlinson, 2004). The crux of differentiating
instruction (other than assessing in order to learn
where each student needs additional work) is in finding
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