Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for Middle School (Theory and Practice

by Ruth Culham

The traits have revolutionized the way writing is taught. And nobody knows the traits better than Ruth Culham, who has written over 25 books and conducted countless workshops for teachers of all grades. Now, Ruth turns her expert eye to middle school. The Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for Middle School contains classroom-tested materials developed just for teachers of grades 6-8. Brand-new scoring guides, scored sample papers, Think Abouts, warm-up exercises, focus lessons, and activities for each trait, organized by that trait’s key qualities, make it easy to assess writing and deliver targeted instruction. Includes printable reproducible forms! For use with Grades 6-8.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Professional Development, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Ruth Culham, aka The Trait Lady, is the president of The Culham Writing Company and former Unit Manager of the Assessment Program at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (recently renamed Education Northwest) in Portland, Oregon.

She is the recognized expert in the traits of writing assessment field and author of numerous professional resources published by Scholastic, including 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide, Grades 3 and Up; 6+1 Traits of Writing for the Primary Grades; Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for Middle School, and Using Picture Books to Teach Writing with the Traits.

As a pioneering researcher in this field, she creates and conducts teacher workshops and videos, designs national and international institutes for writing assessment and instruction, and provides professional development to teachers at local and district levels.

Ruth was named Teacher of the Year in Montana, the highlight of her 19-year teaching career. Ruth holds specialty degrees in Library Science and Elementary, Middle, and Secondary English Education. She has a Masters degree in Teaching English and an Ed.D. in Educational Administration.

from http://ruthculham.wordpress.com/about/

Reviews

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great resource for teaching writing!

[Mehmet Mustafa]

A very useful and functional work. It has a significant impact on the teaching of writing.

[Caitlin Muschenborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chock full of wonderful ideas, lessons, rubrics, and extension activities for the middle school writing classroom. I've already used so, so much from the book, and plan to use lots more throughout the year.

[Lisamarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many practical and interesting ideas in this book that I'll use next year. The last chapter seemed a bit of an add-on, but other than that it was completely enjoyable.

[Kristen Stez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Culham's books are a godsend to all writing teachers!

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very helpful and I reference it often.