Work on writing improvement using the 6 traits

1. Learning to Write
Good
How to know what you rock at and what you don’t so much
rock at
Well

2. WRITING IS HARD TO
MEASURE

3. Writing should
adapt to your
audience

4. This class teaches you how
to write for an
ACADEMIC
audience

5. WHAT DO
ACADEMIC
READERS
VALUE?

6. WHAT DO
ACADEMIC
READERS
VALUE?
Sophistication
Clarity
Insight
Ambivalence

7. WHAT DO
ACADEMIC
READERS
VALUE?
The text as a
Window
Classic Style

8. Other
Styles
Romantic
Oratorical
Reflexive
Practical

9. How to evaluate
your own
writing

10. 6 Traits + 1
Ideas
Voice Sentence Fluency
Word Choice
Organization Conventions

11. RESEARCH
Ideas
Voice Sentence Fluency
Word Choice
Organization Conventions

12. 9-point Scale
1 3 5 97
Deficit Emerging
High School
Standard
Honors
Standard
College
Standard

13. 1 3 5 97
Deficit Emerging
High School
Standard
Honors
Standard
College
Standard
Ideas Voice
Word
Choice
Sentence
Fluency
Organization Conventions
Score your Own

14. Sentence
Fluency
5
7
9
Over reliance on the same
lengths. Lack of variety. Little
use of branching. Minimal use
of semicolons, colons,dashes.
Varied sentence lengths.
Multiple types. Good use of
branching. Regular use of
semicolons, colons,dashes.
Creative and sophisticated use
of sentence types to create
artistic effect.

15. ;
—
:
Connecting two related
sentences or using THEREFORE
Strong comma. Used to set off
important clauses.
I love danger;
therefore, I became
an English teacher.
When I became a
teacher—nearly 2
years since the war
started—I decided to
battle the forces of
darkness.
Indicates a list is coming or an
example. Left side is a full
sentence. The right side is not.
I have little time to
rest: my next
appointment is in one
hour.

16. Count the number of words per
sentence.
Note the type of sentences you
used. Left, middle, right
branching? Compound sentence?
Indicate the overall effect of your
sentence flow. What could be
combined or broken up to give
your writing more variety.
Analyze
your
writing

17. Sentence
Fluency
It was there when he woke up. Presumably
also when he slept. The blot. Standing
alone at the back of the sparsely populated
ferry to Kladow, mercifully sheltered
behind safety glass against the chill of the
lake at evening, Alexander Bruno could no
longer deny the blot that had swollen in his
vision and was with him always, the
vacancy now deforming his view of the
receding shore. It forced him to peer
around its edges for glimpses of the
mansions and biergartens, the strip of
sand at the century-old lido, the
tarpaulined sailboats. He’d come to Berlin ,
half the circumference of the world, two
weeks ago, whether to elude his fate or to
embrace it he couldn’t know.
from A GAMBLER’S ANATOMY
by Jonathan Lethem

18. It was there when he woke up.
Presumably also when he slept.
The blot.
Standing alone at the back of the sparsely
populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully
sheltered behind safety glass against the
chill of the lake at evening, Alexander
Bruno could no longer deny the blot that
had swollen in his vision and was with him
always, the vacancy now deforming his
view of the receding shore.
Short Sentence (6)
Fragment (5)
Super short fragment (2)

19. It was there when he woke up.
Presumably also when he slept.
The blot.
Standing alone at the back of the sparsely
populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully
sheltered behind safety glass against the
chill of the lake at evening, Alexander
Bruno could no longer deny the blot that
had swollen in his vision and was with him
always, the vacancy now deforming his
view of the receding shore.
Short Sentence
Fragment
Super short fragment
Long sentence: (54)
Delayed subject with two clauses

20. It was there when he woke up.
Presumably also when he slept.
The blot.
Standing alone at the back of the sparsely
populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully
sheltered behind safety glass against the
chill of the lake at evening, Alexander
Bruno could no longer deny the blot that
had swollen in his vision and was with him
always, the vacancy now deforming his
view of the receding shore.
Short Sentence
Fragment
Super short fragment
Long sentence:
Relationship to the “blot”

21. It was there when he woke up.
Presumably also when he slept.
The blot.
Standing alone at the back of the sparsely
populated ferry to Kladow, mercifully
sheltered behind safety glass against the
chill of the lake at evening, Alexander
Bruno could no longer deny the blot that
had swollen in his vision and was with him
always, the vacancy now deforming his
view of the receding shore.
Short Sentence
Fragment
Super short fragment
Long sentence:
Added dependent clause

22. It forced him to peer around its
edges for glimpses of the mansions
and biergartens, the strip of sand at
the century-old lido, the tarpaulined
sailboats.
He’d come to Berlin , half the
circumference of the world, two
weeks ago, whether to elude his fate
or to embrace it he couldn’t know.
Medium Sentence (26)
Three items in a series
Asyndeton

23. It forced him to peer around its
edges for glimpses of the mansions
and biergartens, the strip of sand at
the century-old lido, the tarpaulined
sailboats.
He’d come to Berlin, half the
circumference of the world, two
weeks ago, whether to elude his fate
or to embrace it he couldn’t know.
Medium Sentence (26)
Three items in a series
Asyndeton
Medium Sentence (25)
2 Middle branching
phrases

24. Your
Turn
Short Sentence (6)
Fragment (5)
Super short fragment (2)
Long sentence: (54)
Delayed subject with two
clauses
Medium Sentence (26)
Three items in a series
Asyndeton
Medium Sentence (25)
2 Middle branching
phrases

25. Ideas
5
7
9
Vague specifics hinted at rather
than provided. Sometimes lacking
in relevance. Over-reliance on
personal or hypothetical examples.
Evidence is specific with
sensory details. Ideas connect
clearly with the point being
made. Avoids cliche.
Ideas are surprising, creative,
and sophisticated. Often come
from sophisticated sources and
are applied in intriguing ways.

26. Read Bill Gates’s
This I Believe:
Unleashing the power of
Creativity

27. Read T. Susan Chang’s
This I Believe:
The Imperfect traces by
Human hands

28. Chang Gates
There are still far too
many people in the
world whose most
basic needs go
unmet. Every year, for
example, millions of
people die from
diseases that are
easy to prevent or
treat in the developed
world.
But something was
changing in me. As
the world went
digital and the
Matrix movies
played to packed
houses, I found
myself drawn to
fountain pens,
clothbound books
and bargain-priced
LPs.

29. Rewrite Gates.
Choose 2
paragraphs to
improve by adding
specific details.

30. Show don’t Tell
Getting
better
ideas
Metaphors
Sensory Elements
Stories
Allusions
Dialogue

31. Word
Choice
5
7
9
Sometimes uses cliches or is
too wordy. Can lack clarity or
misuse words. Lacks
sophistication and surprise.
Mostly avoids cliche and
wordiness. Generally clear.
Vocabulary is correct though
perhaps not yet academic.
Almost every sentence uses
surprising, erudite
vocabulary.

32. Read out loudGetting
better
Word
Choice
Attack verbs first
Cut back uselessness
Judiciously use
thesaurus
Balance

33. I had a bad cold. In point
of fact, it was horrible. I
was sick as a dog and
stuck on my couch
forever. I went through a
gazillion Kleenex and
coughed and sneezed all
day.
Make
this
better

34. Onto QuestionPress

35. Voice
5
7
9
The writer behind the words is
barely evident. Writing seems
colorless and unispired.
A clear personality is present
in the writing. The elements
of writing comnbine to imbue
the diction with energy.
The writer behind the words is
revealed as an intriguing,
unique individual.

36. Neal
Stephenson
SnowCrash
The Deliverator’s car has enough potential
energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound
of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo
box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car
unloads that power through gaping, gleaming,
polished sphincters. When the Deliverator
puts the hammer down, shit happens. You
want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires
have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt
in four places the size of your tongue. The
Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with
contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs.
The Deliverator is in touch with the road,
starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.

37. Marianne
Robinson
Gilead
I really can't tell what's beautiful anymore. I passed
two young fellows on the street the other day. I know
who they are, they work at the garage. They're not
churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally
young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and
there they were, propped against the garage wall in
the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They're
always so black with grease and so strong with
gasoline I don't know why they don't catch fire
themselves. They were passing remarks back and
forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way
they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an
amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort
of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle
with it.

38. Vladmir
Nabokov
Lolita
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My
sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue
taking a trip of three steps down the palate to
tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was
Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet
ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She
was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the
dotted line. But in my arms she was always
Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did,
indeed she did. In point of fact, there might
have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one
summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom
by the sea. Oh when? About as many years
before Lolita was born as my age was that
summer. You can always count on a murderer
for a fancy prose style.

39. PG Wodehouse
Jeeves in the
Springtime
I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you
get on these days round about the end of April and
the beginning of May, when the sky's a light blue,
with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a
breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted
feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I'm
not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular
morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted
was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to
save her from assassins or something. So that it
was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into
young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a
crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.

40. Improving
Voice
Know who you
want to be
Choose the details
carefully
Swerve from the
expected
Learn the rules…then
break them

41. Tell a story about losing your dog in the
voice of TWO of these personas
•Optomistic and
bubbly lover of life
•Wise-cracking
cynical introvert
•Fearful worrier
•Sad, depressed
fatalist

42. Organization
5
7
9
Over-reliance on
predetermined essay
patterns.
Some variance within 5-
paragraph style.
Uses organization for
creative, artistic, and
intellectual effect.

43. Alternatives to
the
5-paragraph
Essay
Spatial
Chronological
Cause/Effect
Comparative
Some people think
—> I think
Anecdote/Reflection

44. Conventions
5
7
9
Contains a substantial number
of convention errors and /or
spelling mistakes
Mostly avoids errors, but is
also somewhat simple.
Correctly uses a variety of
sentence types, vocabulary
and punctuation.

45. Most Common Errors
Comma Errors
Pronoun Agreement
Run-on Sentences
Spelling Confused words
Fragments
Modifiers
Parallelism

46. Final Note
We are all apprentices in a craft
where no one ever becomes a
master.”
—Ernest Hemingway