Using Benchmark Papers to Teach Writing with the Traits: Middle School

Ready-to-go sample papers organized by trait, with teacher comments.

Trait expert Ruth Culham has collected, assessed, and annotated a set of 36 student papers that can be used as the focus of trait-based writing lessons. This unique resource also contains a CD with PDFs of all the papers and 12 interactive whiteboard activities that guide students through the key qualities of a paper; students simply press the color-coded buttons at the bottom of each page, and information about the key quality is displayed and the corresponding text in the paper is highlighted.

• Interactive whiteboard activities on CD!
• Time-saving resource!

Ruth Culham, Ed.D., is the president of the Culham Writing Company and former Unit Manager of the Assessment Program at Education Northwest in Portland, Oregon. She is the recognized expert in the traits of writing field and author of many professional resources published by Scholastic, including 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide, Grades 3 and Up; 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for the Primary Grades; and Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for Middle School, and is the winner of the 2011 Teacher's Choice award.