About the Authors:  Dr. Jody Isernhagen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.  Prior to accepting her assignment at UNL, she served as Superintendent of Schools in Crete, Nebraska.  During her tenure there, school improvement activities were continuously focused upon improving student performance.  The Crete Public Schools worked collaboratively in this endeavor with the Doane College faculty.  Dr. Isernhagen can be reached at jisernhagen3@unl.edu.

Dr. Julie Kozisek is a Professor of Education at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska.  She serves as the Director of Elementary Education and Placement Center Director.  Her areas of expertise are language arts and assessment, focusing on effective reading and writing strategies in the K-8 classroom and authentic assessment strategies.  She can be reached at

Editor's Note: Crete Public Schools in Crete, Nebraska, serves 1400 K-12 students.  Fourteen percent of the student population is minority and 28% are considered low income.  Crete Public Schools has been actively engaged in a formal school improvement process for the past ten years.  This article describes a year-long implementation of the Six Trait Analytical Writing Model and the findings from a self-perception survey with fifth grade students.

According to ninth-grade language arts teacher S. Crouse (personal communication), “. . .writing has been a difficult thing to teach and even more difficult to assess. For the first time in almost 30 years of teaching, I feel that we may have a chance to teach writing in an organized, systematic way that will truly have a positive impact on both students' attitudes and skills.”

Language arts teachers in Crete, Nebraska, wanted to have a positive impact on both students' attitudes and skills in writing. They recognized that of their many responsibilities, teaching and assessing writing presented the greatest challenges. Harper (1997), author of The Writer's Toolbox, acknowledged that teaching and assessing writing is very challenging. She stated, “Try only to explain your own revision process, and it quickly becomes clear why it is a difficult thing to teach, even to the most able students” (p. 193). Therefore, when these public school teachers were offered an opportunity to learn more about the Six-Trait Analytical Writing Model (Northwest Regional Lab, 2000), they were eager to participate.

Implementation of the Six-Trait Analytical Writing Model

During the first year of implementation of the Six-Trait Model, the teachers and administrators within the school district wanted to find out what students thought about their writing as the new writing model was being introduced. Therefore, pre- and post-perceptual data were collected in two elementary fifth-grade classrooms. One classroom received instruction in the Six-Trait Writing Model while another fifth-grade classroom continued to implement the regular writing curriculum.

Additionally, there was interest in what classroom teachers thought about the Six-Trait Model. Teachers involved in implementing the model were also interviewed at the end of the school year to capture their perceptions of the writing changes that had occurred in their classrooms.

The Crete School District is fortunate to have many teacher education students participating within classroom instruction. These Doane College students and their professor observed and worked in language arts classrooms during the implementation year. Data were also collected on the perceptions of these pre-service students.

Student Self-Perceptions of Writing

The Writer Self-Perception Scale, developed by Bottomley, Henk, and Melnick (1997/1998), was used to assess the children's perceptions of themselves as writers in the two fifth-grade classrooms. Prior to the development of this instrument, Bottomley et al. (1997/1998) stated that there had been few attempts to develop instruments for measuring student self-perceptions of writing. The instruments available had limited norming and were focused on very specific aspects of writing. This instrument allowed the authors to collect the perceptions of a small sample of students while implementing a new writing approach within their classroom.

The Writer Self-Perception Scale consists of 38 items. There is one general item—“I think I am a good writer." The remaining items represent overall writing and specific dimensions of writing.

Bottomley et al. (1997/1998) identifies and characterizes these items as follows:

1. General Progress.  How one's perceptions of present writing performance compare with past achievement (i.e., “Writing is easier for me than it used to be.” or “I am getting better at writing.”).
2. Specific Progress. Items dealing with more explicit dimensions of writing such as focus, clarity, organization, style, and coherence (i.e., “The words I use in my writing are no better than the ones I used before.” or “My descriptions are more interesting than before.”). 
3. Observational Comparison.  How a child perceives his/her writing performance in relation to his/her peers (i.e., “I write better than other kids in my class.” or “When I write, my organization is better than the other kids in my class.”).
4. Social Feedback.  Direct and indirect input about the child's writing derived from teachers, classmates, and family members (i.e., “People in my family think I am a good writer.” or “My teacher thinks my writing is fine.”).
5. Physiological States.  Internal feelings that the child experiences during writing (i.e., “I like how writing makes me feel inside.” or “When I write, I feel calm.”).

These dimensions directly complemented the Six-Trait Model being introduced in the fifth-grade writing classroom and, therefore, provided a way to capture the children's perception of themselves as writers.

Changes in Student Perceptions of Their Writing

The results of the Writer Self-Perception Scale (Bottomley et al. (1997/1998) showed that 22 fifth-grade students who engaged in the new writing process indicated they made the most progress in the following two areas:

1. Observational Comparison.  The children perceived that their writing performance had improved in relation to their peers' performance.
2. Social Feedback.  The children perceived that their writing had improved in the eyes of the teachers, classmates, and family members.

However, the control group involved in the regular writing curriculum showed declines in both of these areas. There was slight progress or decline noted in all other areas of the Writer Self-Perception Scale for both the control group and the writing project group.