Scriveners' Trappings

6+1 Trait Writing Lesson Plans on Organization.

How many times have you reviewed beginning of the year essays and felt frustration and rising panic as you see page after page of scribbled words with no paragraphs, no titles, and only the most rudimentary sense of sentence structure? Where do you begin? Unschooled student writing can be overwhelming and daunting to the most experienced teacher. However, if you understand the 6+1 Traits TM system, you will know what to do and how to go about it.

This week, I will focus on the writing trait of organization. I love to teach about organization this time of the year. My students have been writing for six months (at different stages and levels of course), and many are ready to work on organizing their writing. Here are are some lesson ideas that can help get your students writing more organized!

"One method I use to teach organization is outlining the paper after the first draft. I ask students to write an outline of their paper if it is poorly organized and if they don’t see the lack of organization. "

~ Kathleen Sommers - Teaching and Assessing Writing with the Six Traits, Spring 2013