Review: Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 6
My review today is for Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 6, a writing course for 6th graders published by Evan-Moor.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy from Timberdoodle.
Daily 6-Trait Writing
The six traits of writing include:
- Ideas: “Without good ideas, your writing would not have much of a point.”
- Organization: “The organization of your writing is what holds everything together.”
- Word Choice: “When you write, choose just the right words and use them correctly.”
- Sentence Fluency: “You want your writing to be easy to read and follow.”
- Voice: “Your writing should sound like you and no one else!”
- Conventions: “When you don’t follow the rules, your reader can become lost and confused.”
“Daily 6-Trait Writing contains 25 weeks of mini-lessons divided into five units. Each unit provides five weeks of scaffolded instruction focusing on one of the traits. Each week of Daily 6-Trait Writing focuses on a specific skill…”
The workbook includes a nice variety of practice activities and exercises. The pages are appealing and include plenty of white space allowing for overflow writing when needed. Just me? Oh, well. Maybe so.
The teacher’s guide is incorporated in the workbook rather than a separate manual. This is a reproducible workbook with permission to make photocopies for single-classroom use.
The assignments are carefully planned to help students work on each of the six traits of writing: coming up with good ideas, organizing their thoughts, choosing words carefully, using fluent sentences, allowing their voice to shine through, and following the conventions of writing.
Each week, the assignments for Days 1-3 include models of writing for students to analyze, revise, or add to. Day 4 provides a pre-writing activity to align with the Day 5 writing prompt.
My Thoughts
Daily 6-Trait Writing is designed for teaching in a classroom. It could work for independent learners in a homeschool setting, but the parent would need to adapt the teaching notes somewhat. However, it is nice to have the answer key right there, along with a detailed scoring rubric.
The Grade 6 level is more grade-specific than I expected (as are, presumably, other levels). Topics would interest 11- or 12-year-old kids, such as sports, computer games, school activities, summer jobs, music, movies, outdoor activities, and food. The Grade 6 book could be used for a slightly younger or older student, but it wouldn’t work as well for a remedial course for a high school student or an adult.
Overall, Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 6 is a great writing course. I like how it’s laid out, and I believe it could help improve any sixth-grader’s writing skills. I would have enjoyed working through it when I was in sixth grade.
