In the Comments section (below) of this post you will find websites that are useful for writing instruction. These are provided by the dedicated professionals who were participants in the latest Writing Rocks! class. You will find the URL for the site as well as a review. Feel free to respond to the reviews as well as to share them with colleagues.
Robert Young
Writer
Social Media Links
http://www.greatsource.com/iwrite/index.html
I really like this site as it takes the writer through the entire process of writing the different forms of writing required in the classroom. It has a student section in addition to a teacher section. The student section describes the various forms, gives examples, writing prompts, and even offers short video tutorials on some of the writing processes. The student can see samples of the different forms of writing as well as tips and tricks on the 6 traits.
http://www.storyjumper.com
This site is awesome for beginning writers, especially those who like to include art with their writing. I was able to use this site with my 3rd graders early in the year for a presentation to our school board. I made sure to pre teach that the writers needed to have one page of writing before they added art so that kept them focused on the writing aspect. The neat thing about this site was that they could log in from home and continue to work on the story after hours, I even had kids start new books from home and then showcase them when they got back to class. This site also allows for collaboration as some students did animal research and split up the book so they could be working on it at the same time.
http://www.writingprompts.net
One of the hardest things I encounter in writing in my classroom is getting the kids started. Some of the students are able to take an idea that has either been prompted or self chosen and begin writing while others need a lot of assistance in deciding on a subject that they feel comfortable with. I have used this site before in class to help students get motivated and write. One aspect of this site that I like is that it gives a variety of grade level prompts as well was the different forms of writing so there is always something for everyone at every level.
Diana Fitzer
Writing Rocks!
Writing Websites
http://www.educationnorthwest.org/traits
Education Northwest provides educator services in professional development, technical assistance, evaluation and research. Service categories include 6+1 Traits writing, ELL, mathematics and science and others. The coverage of traits is comprehensive as evidenced by the Navigate the Traits options on the left of the page. Offerings span research, definitions, prompts, lesson plans, rubrics, scoring, assessment, etc. Lessons can be searched by grade and trait.
In addition to offering prompts, suggestions for how to create prompts that engage students are given.
I experimented with the scoring page which not only offers examples of scored student papers for each level (elementary is split into lower and upper) but an opportunity to practice scoring by one trait or all six. Presentation is not included.
I sought sites for ideas on writing centers for kindergartners as I will be organizing this area soon.Sharon Taylor’s ideas on Scholastic’s site http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/classroom-solutions/2011/11/kindergarten-writing-center-action is full ways to create an enticing center that can support young students. Her rainbow words activity is an extension to the rainbow letters exercise that I have used. The visual aids are just the support needed for emergent writers. Let’s Go Shopping is a teacher-made catalog of toys, books, etc. for children to peruse and then create a list of ten items they want. Like Robert, Ms Taylor also has a post office where kids can “mail” letters to classmates. A class post carrier delivers these at a specified time during the day. She includes links to Mrs. Meacham’s Classroom Snapshots http://www.jmeacham.com/mini.offices.htm#portable which offers instruction for making mini-offices and portable word walls. Another link is to Mrs. Gilchrist’s Class (www.mrsgilchristclass.blogspot.com ) where printables are available for making many of the aforementioned materials.
A couple of the articles at http://www.smekenseducation.com/6traits were of interest to me: The “6-Traits Song Upgrade” and “Introducing the Six Traits in Kindergarten.” The first article is about a teacher who “modernized” Ruth Culham’s trait songs and links to her class video. I think kids would enjoy these and probably be motivated to improve on them. The later article is about preparing the very youngest students for the traits by introducing these concepts with picture book illustrations and casually, in passing during writing conferences.
Writing Rocks 3 Websites-Megan Imamura
1. http://www.teachertube.com- Teacher tube has tons of good video lessons on all types of writing activities/lessons. It is fun to be able to see the teachers in action teaching in a real classroom not just reading about the lesson on paper. It also has other ideas from classroom management to teaching all subjects; I look forward to exploring this site more in the future. Endless amounts of resources on this website. I checked out some persuasive writing lessons and found some great ideas for lessons with primary grade students.
2. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/lang_write_elem.htm This is a great site for teachers to get lesson plans, printables and teaching ideas about writing. It has different lessons you can search by grade level. I found lots of great ideas for primary writing activities. It has many sections from good writing prompts to lesson plans using different types of writing. I look forward to coming back to this site when I need more writing resources.
3. http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listpoetrymr14.html- Poetry Place- I found this site while looking around for good writing sites. This site has lots of good links of online resources for studying poetry, activities, entire units on teaching poetry at the elementary level, ideas how to get children excited about poetry and much more! It would be a great resource to use while teaching about poetry at the beginning of the year.
Good variety, Megan. Haven’t seen teachertube before. Good find!
Megan Imamura
Writing Rocks 3 Websites
1. http://www.teachertube.com- Teacher tube has tons of good video lessons on all types of writing activities/lessons. It is fun to be able to see the teachers in action teaching in a real classroom not just reading about the lesson on paper. It also has other ideas from classroom management to teaching all subjects; I look forward to exploring this site more in the future. Endless amounts of resources on this website. I checked out some persuasive writing lessons and found some great ideas for lessons with primary grade students.
2. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/lang_write_elem.htm This is a great site for teachers to get lesson plans, printables and teaching ideas about writing. It has different lessons you can search by grade level. I found lots of great ideas for primary writing activities. It has many sections from good writing prompts to lesson plans using different types of writing. I look forward to coming back to this site when I need more writing resources.
3. http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listpoetrymr14.html- Poetry Place- I found this site while looking around for good writing sites. This site has lots of good links of online resources for studying poetry, activities, entire units on teaching poetry at the elementary level, ideas how to get children excited about poetry and much more! It would be a great resource to use while teaching about poetry at the beginning of the year.
Megan Imamura
Writing Rocks 3 Websites
1. http://www.teachertube.com- Teacher tube has tons of good video lessons on all types of writing activities/lessons. It is fun to be able to see the teachers in action teaching in a real classroom not just reading about the lesson on paper. It also has other ideas from classroom management to teaching all subjects; I look forward to exploring this site more in the future. Endless amounts of resources on this website. I checked out some persuasive writing lessons and found some great ideas for lessons with primary grade students.
2. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/lang_write_elem.htm This is a great site for teachers to get lesson plans, printables and teaching ideas about writing. It has different lessons you can search by grade level. I found lots of great ideas for primary writing activities. It has many sections from good writing prompts to lesson plans using different types of writing. I look forward to coming back to this site when I need more writing resources.
3. http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listpoetrymr14.html- Poetry Place- I found this site while looking around for good writing sites. This site has lots of good links of online resources for studying poetry, activities, entire units on teaching poetry at the elementary level, ideas how to get children excited about poetry and much more! It would be a great resource to use while teaching about poetry at the beginning of the year.
http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/504#answer1
This website concisely provides a wealth of information. With the reinstatement of 4th grade state writing assessment for the coming year, I found this website a “marriage of assessment and instruction”, that would be a wonderful aid in preparing teachers and students for the coming task, and also provide a foundation for the goal of creating lifelong, enthusiastic, and competent writers. The topics covered include identifying books for trait connections, creating editing lessons on a word processor, selecting strong/weak pairs of student papers to contrast, revising strategies, suggestions for making writing a thoughtful and non-threatening time, and thoughts on letting the students be the teachers. I found the final topic on philosophical ideas for teaching conventions to be particularly helpful with suggestions on applying current brain research to the teaching of writing. Excellent information!
http://joanirvine.com/how-to-make-a-pop-up/
This is a fun site! I am always looking for ideas and activities that incorporate art into a day’s lesson. Joan Irvine’s instructions on creating a pop-up book are clear, fun, and easy to follow. The result would be a talking mouth, an imaginative possibility for students to employ in sharing their writing. Because the illustrated directions are so clear, I would also display this website, and lead my class in learning to follow sequential directions. The project also is a great way to incorporate math and measurement in a writing lesson, as well as furnishing an avenue for humor and entertainment in a writing or reading lesson.
http://canteach.ca/elementary/prompts.hmtl
This website provides eight pages of writing prompts and journal topics. These topics range from thought-provoking, humorous, imaginative, and those conducive to real-life problem solving situations for an elementary student. Questions are organized according to beginning words of the question such as:
What is…
What if…
What do you think…
What…misc.
How…
I wish…
Which…
Why…
Misc..
These queries could be adaptable and pertinent to incorporating writing into curriculum areas such as science, social studies, and current events. They would also be great for homework activities and fo foster persuasive writing skills. An important purpose of many of these ideas would be to foster not only a teacher’s understanding of their students, but to increase a child’s self-awareness in meaningful ways.
http://k6educators.about.com/od/languageart1/a/Writing_Hub.htm
The above website was interesting to me because it was quite comprehensive, in terms of teaching elementary age writing. It had background on the writing traits, lesson idea plans, real world writing examples, strategies, templates, and more. Basically a wealth of knowledge for a teacher looking for ideas on how to boost their student’s writing as well as the instruction.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/practice_guides/writing_pg_062612.pdf
I chose this as my second website because, while it is quite intimidating and long, it is really a great resource on how to set up your writing curriculum for the year. It gives teachers ideas on not only the amount of practice you should be allowing your students, but the different types of writing practice your should be including. I feel it would be a great beginning of the year website to use when structuring your writing goals and schedule.
http://tabstart.com/directory/education/writing-strategies-for-elementary-level-1419
My third website is a great one to use mid year. It reminds the teacher of the ABC’s of writing, talks about getting students to write good hooks (hopefully by mid year they are more than ready for this), contains lesson plans as well as units on persuasive and creative writing, and gives ideas and resources for writers workshop. Overall, a great website to get some further inspiration mid year.
http://writingfix.com/6_traits/sentence_fluency.htm
This website was created from the Northern Nevada Writing Project and speaks to the four traits taught and evaluated in the State of Nevada. These traits are Voice, Organization, Ideas, and Conventions. Classroom teachers have created these resources and lessons. The following critique speaks to the trait of sentence fluency.
“WritingFix” offers a free template of Sentence Fluency Post-It sized notes. These notes can be printed on orange colored paper, cut out, and stapled to students’ drafts. One might also consider printing/stamping the rubric on actual post-it notes. (Kids love post-it notes.)
The best feature of this website, in my opinion, was the many connections of writing to literature. An example, under the heading of Transitions & Conjunctions, is the use of the books Fortunately, by Remy Charlip, Meanwhile, by Jules Feiffer, and the aged, but well-loved Homer Price, by Robert McCloskey. Examples of transition words and conjunctions are found in each story with follow-up writing practice activities.
http://pinterest.com/
In this website, one must join to see the resources. It is free and one receives frequent update through email, automatically. There is a large variety of activities shown, some related to education and educational elements such as writing, reading, math, and arts & crafts.
One link I explored was “writing prompts for kindergarten”. These prompts were many and varied, and were adaptable to other grade levels.
Another of the items was called “Colorful Words” and had students use colored pencils when they used an adjective. They then continued writing in regular pencil. I saw this not only teaching the trait of word choice, but also making students aware of parts of speech.
“Sticker Storytelling” was the set up for a writing station that provided stickers for students to select, create a picture, then write the accompanying story. Nice idea for a fun independent writing activity.
“Sparkly sentences”- the teacher posts a different picture each week and students write one asking and one telling sentence about it. The goal is to make both the question and statement sparkle by adding details and checking for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling through out the week. Students write the sentence in pencil first and after proofreading are allowed to make it sparkle by tracing over it with the gel and glitter pens.
Good one, Priscilla! I haven’t seen this one before.
http://nicadez.blogspot.com/p/anchor-charts.html
Nichole Hernandez, a teacher of 20 years in Trinidad and Tobago, shares a colorful website of Anchor charts that may give teachers with little support, ideas for creating supporting posters in writing and reading. Three of the areas related to language arts are as follows:
Grammar Resources- chart ideas include conventions and word choice ideas. Idioms are also included under this heading.
Writing Resources- charts are actually more focused on writing prompts, not teaching the writing traits.
Vocabulary Resources- this area has only a few ideas, but they are usable in practicing the trait of word choice. My favorite chart, which could be adapted to other overused words, was “SAID IS DEAD”, and gives students many alternate choices for “said” when writing.
I have spent the past few days researching websites and have found many that have good information about writing. I chose to use the three that I found most helpful to me as a K-2 teacher in setting up a successful writers workshop for next year.
http//www.readwritethink.org
Read Write Think
Take the mouse, click on classroom resources, and underneath you will find lesson plans, student interactive and even mobile apps. This site was easy to search and had many different kinds of lessons from units to mini lessons in a variety of writing topics. Each lesson showed clearly the grade level and what kind of lesson it was. The lesson had additional resources and materials that could be printed off. Also on the site were several interactive ideas, each with lessons that were grade appropriate to go with them once that interactive was clicked on. This website is a helpful resource for teachers who are planning a lesson with a specific topic, such as guided writing. You can obtain the lesson from the site or make your own and use these to enhance it.
http//www.cyberspaces.net/6traits/
Six traits writing Assessment
This is a simple site that focuses on the 6 traits. It is clear that this is not an official 6 traits page, but the ideas were helpful. There are resources for common synonyms, samples of K-2 work when clicking on anchor papers, strategies for teaching any trait, and lesson plans for teaching traits, etc. The heading that caught my eye first was the rubrics for each of the traits at the k-2 level. There are also standard rubrics for upper elementary classes. It is a simple site, but it would be a great resource when teaching the six traits for lower elementary students.
http//www.tips-for-teachers.com/WritersWorkshop/htm
This site had a nice overview for implementing Writers Workshop in the classroom. I found this site from a link on the Busy Teachers Café site which also has great information. The pages for this website are full of information giving great ideas for what a daily schedule would look like, management ideas, grading, printable materials, and resource books. There is also information about how to start up Writers Workshop if a person has never done this before. A simple year long outline specifically for 2nd grade can also be found.
I like how you discovered the last one. It’s important to follow links.
http://www.eslcafe.com/idioms/
I have found this site helpful throughout the years. I am a substitute teacher and have an endorsement in English Language Learners. I often go into classrooms where the students are “tripped up” by idioms they come across in the English language. Teaching idioms and reinforcing their practice can be a huge service to these students, in writing as well as speaking and reading. This site has an exhaustive list of idioms that are used in real life every day. I think it is helpful to teach one idiom a day at the beginning of class. Dave’s ESL lists the idioms along with their meaning and examples. Dave’s ESL also has assignments that are directly relevant to writing. He has worksheets on confusing words, adjective clauses, conditional sentences, and English sounds and spelling. This resource could be helpful in the regular classroom as well as the ESL classroom. Enjoy this site and learn about all the idioms we take for granted!
writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty_resources/tips-on-teaching-writing/in-class-writing-exercises
Although this site is geared towards a college classroom, there are plenty of adaptable ideas for the grade 4-5 classroom. This site offers brilliant ideas on how to make writing a familiar and rewarding task for students in your classroom. Under the “Brainstorming” heading, the author suggests that students choose a topic and set a timer for 7-10 minutes. They will write non-stop and disregard spelling, grammar, or punctuation. The “Organizing” heading has activities to assist students in sorting the important ideas from those that can be discarded. Under the “Drafting” heading, one of the activities is for the student to write a letter about what the paper will be about. This gives students a sense of what they are qualified to write about and the areas that still need to be worked on. Under the “Revising” heading, a student can have another student read their paper out loud. This will help them understand the flow and make any necessary changes.
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/…writing/writing_prompts/gr_5_writing_prompts...
This site contains a list of 44 writing prompts suitable for 4th-5th grade writers. The prompts are thought-provoking and designed to give students a brisk head-start for journal writing. One example I liked was, “Suppose a door suddenly appears as you are walking down the hall. Write about what happens when you open the door.” This site encourages creative writing and gives teachers a useful tool to promote journal writing every day. Teachers can learn to design their own prompts by observing this unique collection!
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/…writing/writing_prompts/gr_5_writing_prompts...
This site contains a list of 44 writing prompts suitable for 4th-5th grade writers. The prompts are thought-provoking and designed to give students a brisk head-start for journal writing. One example I liked was, “Suppose a door suddenly appears as you are walking down the hall. Write about what happens when you open the door.” This site encourages creative writing and gives teachers a useful tool to promote journal writing every day. Teachers can learn to design their own prompts by observing this unique collection!
writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty_resources/tips-on-teaching-writing/in-class-writing-exercises
Although this site is geared towards a college classroom, there are plenty of adaptable ideas for the grade 4-5 classroom. This site offers brilliant ideas on how to make writing a familiar and rewarding task for students in your classroom. Under the “Brainstorming” heading, the author suggests that students choose a topic and set a timer for 7-10 minutes. They will write non-stop and disregard spelling, grammar, or punctuation. The “Organizing” heading has activities to assist students in sorting the important ideas from those that can be discarded. Under the “Drafting” heading, one of the activities is for the student to write a letter about what the paper will be about. This gives students a sense of what they are qualified to write about and the areas that still need to be worked on. Under the “Revising” heading, a student can have another student read their paper out loud. This will help them understand the flow and make any necessary changes.
http://www.eslcafe.com/idioms/
I have found this site helpful throughout the years. I am a substitute teacher and have an endorsement in English Language Learners. I often go into classrooms where the students are “tripped up” by idioms they come across in the English language. Teaching idioms and reinforcing their practice can be a huge service to these students, in writing as well as speaking and reading. This site has an exhaustive list of idioms that are used in real life every day. I think it is helpful to teach one idiom a day at the beginning of class. Dave’s ESL lists the idioms along with their meaning and examples. Dave’s ESL also has assignments that are directly relevant to writing. He has worksheets on confusing words, adjective clauses, conditional sentences, and English sounds and spelling. This resource could be helpful in the regular classroom as well as the ESL classroom. Enjoy this site and learn about all the idioms we take for granted!
This was also an excellent site for writing with kids. It was my favorite of the sites that I found. It has strategies and lesson plans, and links to help with ideas on how to implement the ideas. It used a five stage process instead of the six. It offered lesson plans and worksheets. The writer’s workshop section had lots of links for resources to help teachers.
http://tabstart.com/directory/education/writing-strategies-for-elementary-level-1419
I love this site too! Wonderful links! I just copied some great templates for Writer’s Workshop and plan on using some things from the Descriptive Writing and Poetry Writing sections on the Scholastic link. Thank you!
This site lists some great ideas, and expands on them, and includes ideas on how to carry out the recommendations. I agreed with their proposals, and liked their ideas on how to make it happen on a regular basis. It’s something I plan on doing in my own classroom.
Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers:
Recommendation 1: Provide daily time for students to write
Recommendation 2: Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes
Recommendation 3: Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing and word processing
Recommendation 4: Create an engaged community of writers
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/56378/
I liked this web site as it had not only the ideas to improve student’s writing, but ideas on how to add to their writing. It started with the basics, then added other ideas to have students use their writing in real situations, such as with pen pals and parent newsletters home. It would bring the writing into their lives in a useful manner, showing them why we learn to write – to communicate with others.
http://k6educators.about.com/od/languageart1/a/Writing_Hub.htm
Wow! I spent a better part of 2 days searching the net for quality writing websites and realized that there is a wealth of information out there. I narrowed my site choices to 3, largely according to the following two criteria: 1) meaningful writing (and other) resources for me as a 2nd grade teacher; 2) sites that had additional, but active, links. Here are the winners:
Busy Teachers Café
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com
At the Busy Teachers Café you can click on ‘Strategies’, followed by ‘Writing’ where you will find:
• Writing workshop minilessons, etc
• Sentence lessons, center activities, resources and online games
• Paragraph activities
• Tired word lists and more
You can also click on ‘Printables’ and choose either K-2 or 3-6 to find planning sheets, journal calendars, topic sentence activities and more!
In addition to specific writing activities, you can access grade level monthly theme activities and resources and even discover online teacher forums. It truly is a place for busy K-6 teachers!
Writing Fix
http://www.writingfix.com
This is a site for teachers of writers of all ages. You will find a drop-down menu on the left which offers the following categories, each with multiple subcategories:
• Writing prompts (followed by picture book inspired lessons by trait)
• Mentor text lessons
• 6-trait materials
• Writing genres
• Teaching the process
• Across the curriculum (I was particularly excited to see one of my all-time favorite books, The Important Book, by Margaret Wise Brown, used as a mentor text for a summary writing piece on any science subject.)
• Writing about reading
This site is sponsored by the North Nevada Writing Project and there is a wealth of information under each category. Bonus: for those of you who teach in the upper grades, you might want to check the link for Always Write: http://www.corbettharrison.com. Corbett is an educator and teacher trainer and writes frequently for Writing Fix. In his words, ‘I teach writing using differentiated instruction.’ He offers a lengthy list of picture book lessons and prompts as well as for chapter books. There is something for everyone here, but the emphasis is on upper elementary and older writers.
The Daily Café
http://www.dailycafe.com
For those of you who have read The Daily 5 or The Café Book, you are already familiar with the two sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I read their first book about 2 years ago, created some materials, and implemented some of their procedures. I have also been subscribing to their free newsletter and have accessed some of their free samples as well as read some of their featured articles. This year, however, I am committed to run a more thorough Daily 5 program. To solidify my commitment, I subscribed to a $69.00 annual membership which will allow me access to videos about Daily 5 lessons, discussion boards, podcasts, and over 1,000 articles. The Daily 5 is a language arts program with a heavy emphasis on reading. One of the 5 ‘tasks’, however is ‘Working on Writing’ so if you search ‘writing’, you will discover a variety of writing activities. The Daily 5 writing activity is not meant to replace writers workshop (or ‘wordshop’), but is another chance for students to choose writing, and have a writing conference, during a language arts time slot.
Excellent choices, Mitzi, and presentation, too.
Wow! I spent a better part of 2 days searching the net for quality writing websites and realized that there is a wealth of information out there. I narrowed my site choices to 3, largely according to the following two criteria: 1) meaningful writing (and other) resources for me as a 2nd grade teacher; 2) sites that had additional, but active, links. Here are the winners:
Busy Teachers Café
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com
At the Busy Teachers Café you can click on ‘Strategies’, followed by ‘Writing’ where you will find:
• Writing workshop minilessons, etc
• Sentence lessons, center activities, resources and online games
• Paragraph activities
• Tired word lists and more
You can also click on ‘Printables’ and choose either K-2 or 3-6 to find planning sheets, journal calendars, topic sentence activities and more!
In addition to specific writing activities, you can access grade level monthly theme activities and resources and even discover online teacher forums. It truly is a place for busy K-6 teachers!
Writing Fix
http://www.writingfix.com
This is a site for teachers of writers of all ages. You will find a drop-down menu on the left which offers the following categories, each with multiple subcategories:
• Writing prompts (followed by picture book inspired lessons by trait)
• Mentor text lessons
• 6-trait materials
• Writing genres
• Teaching the process
• Across the curriculum (I was particularly excited to see one of my all-time favorite books, The Important Book, by Margaret Wise Brown, used as a mentor text for a summary writing piece on any science subject.)
• Writing about reading
This site is sponsored by the North Nevada Writing Project and there is a wealth of information under each category. Bonus: for those of you who teach in the upper grades, you might want to check the link for Always Write: http://www.corbettharrison.com. Corbett is an educator and teacher trainer and writes frequently for Writing Fix. In his words, ‘I teach writing using differentiated instruction.’ He offers a lengthy list of picture book lessons and prompts as well as for chapter books. There is something for everyone here, but the emphasis is on upper elementary and older writers.
The Daily Café
http://www.dailycafe.com
For those of you who have read The Daily 5 or The Café Book, you are already familiar with the two sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I read their first book about 2 years ago, created some materials, and implemented some of their procedures. I have also been subscribing to their free newsletter and have accessed some of their free samples as well as read some of their featured articles. This year, however, I am committed to run a more thorough Daily 5 program. To solidify my commitment, I subscribed to a $69.00 annual membership which will allow me access to videos about Daily 5 lessons, discussion boards, podcasts, and over 1,000 articles. The Daily 5 is a language arts program with a heavy emphasis on reading. One of the 5 ‘tasks’, however is ‘Working on Writing’ so if you search ‘writing’, you will discover a variety of writing activities. The Daily 5 writing activity is not meant to replace writers workshop (or ‘wordshop’), but is another chance for students to choose writing during a language arts time slot.
This 6-Traits website is sponsored by the Northern Nevada Writing Project (NNWP) and has trait development lessons and resources for any grade level. You can search for each specific trait and find printable materials for teaching the traits. I like the ideas that are shared, and I found they can easily be individualized to meet the needs of my classroom .
http://www.writingfix.com
I enjoyed exploring this teacher created website. It shares ideas for teaching the writing process using the 6-Traits model. The resources she lists are items you will already have in the classroom or are easily obtainable. There are additional links listed that also offer a variety of 6-Traits information.
http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/menu.html
This website has a variety of thematic bulletin board ideas for different grade levels to help introduce each trait of 6-Traits writing. I especially like the pictures and the brief description of how each teacher used the bulletin boards throughout the year. This is a great resource that I plan to use to help implement my 6-trait writing vision in the classroom!
http://www.smekenseducation.com/yearlong-6-traits-bulletin-boards.html