Six Traits of the Writing Process: Which one works?
Introduction
Conn McQuinn from Puget Sound ESD in Burien, Washington guides teachers and students alike through a writing process with the analogy of creating a "Magnifique" pizza and Six Trait Writing Links. Pamela Arlov wrote a book titled Wordsmith: A guide to college writing, which explains the writing process. We are going to compare the six traits of writing by Conn McQuinn and the writing process by Pamela Arlov and determine which seems to work best.
Clarification
The first trait is “Ideas”. Ideas are the main focus of the paper (McQuinn, 2007). By putting these images, documents and stories together you develop a theme to hold the readers attention. Conn McQuinn uses a chart with each trait, within this chart he ask the reader to focus on the following with each trait: preparing, emerging, engaging, flourishing, refining, transitioning, maturing, extending and continuing. The question would be “how do writers develop in the trait of ideas?” This would happen by preparing a drawing with illustrated thoughts to communicate ideas. As the idea develops you may add anecdotes and clear details to get the main idea across to the reader. The trait “Ideas” can be compared to the “Prewriting phase” by Arlov. Prewriting is the “I think first” phase (Arlov, 2007, p4). Prewriting is considered the most crucial of the stages in the writing process, although it sometimes is the most neglected. Just as athletes need to warm up before a game, writers also need to warm up. In preparing for writing, you have to decide on a topic, identify an audience and purpose for writing, and gather ideas and data.
The second trait is the “Voice”. The voice is considered the writer’...
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