Re: 6 Traits and Collins Writing Program

Amy Blackmore

Posted on 11/07/09

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On 1/13/09, Peter wrote:
The Collins Writing program is a crock, a way of dumbing down
writing instruction so that teachers who don't want to work
that hard can still pretend to be doing writing instruction.

Hi, I am responding to this particular comment about Collins
being only for teachers who don't want to work hard. I found to
be a pretty harsh statement considering that any smart teacher
will use a program and tweak it to make it work for them (i.e.
dropping what doesn't work and keeping what does work). I was
introduced to Collins in 2001 at a PD conference my supervisor
asked me to attend. Shortly after, I left NJ and started
teaching HS English in South Los Angeles. I primarily taught
9th grade low level classes.

Collins (Types 1 and 2) came in very handy on a day to day
basis in class. However, once I got in to Types 3,4, and 5 it
took quite a bit of work to just get them in to a routine. I
have to say that reading each other's work out loud in partners
worked so very well for my students. We, of course, had the
major rule that any time someone stumbled over another writer's
sentences, they both had to stop and look at what the problem
was for the reader. If they needed help, they called me over to
see about syntax issues, etc. Kids really took pride in those
double-spaced handwritten drafts. While much of Collins is, as
someone said, not a truly original set of ideas for those of us
who have taught writing over the years, it gave me direction,
focus and hope for many students including the students with
the lowest skills to achieve in some way. I never found that I
dumbed down my essay topics or my requirements for volume. I
found that I was finding a middle ground between quantity and
quality.

I don't think Collins is for everyone and I'm not sure that
entire schools/departments should blindly adopt it. Yet, I had
to speak up to the notion that only lazy teachers use Collins
in their classrooms. That's just simply absurd. I tend to see
myself more as a teacher willing to experiment and try out new
approaches in her classroom and eventually create some hybrid
of my go-to methods and any new ones that work.

Peter, might I ask what grade level you teach and the
socioeconomic status of your district? While I certainly don't
think Collins is much use for a high four year college-bound
district, I think the FCA function of it can really take a
writer with no skills and give him/her some skills/knowledge of
the writing discipline. There's something to be said for that!
I'm not insinuating that you only find perfect writers in a
high achieving district but you get my drift.

Now, I have never heard of the 6 Traits system. I'll have to
research that.

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