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WritingFix: Voice...one of the 6 writing traits
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The Writing Traits: Voice
helping your students "go deep" with stylistic techniques during classroom writing instruction

This page's introduction comes from the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Guide (click here for details on ordering this print resource): Here’s one of my favorite “tricks” to do to teachers at a writing traits training. I like to read a great picture book that doesn’t have tons of voice going for it. To find one, I look for a book with fairly ordinary verbs and good-but-not-necessarily-great adjectives. Pattern books are good for this “trick.” My current favorite book to do this with is When I was Five… by Arthur Howard. Now don’t shoot me! I think it’s a great book. Notice that When I Was Five… was cited as a book with a great theme in the idea development section of our print guide. Not all books need to have voice to be considered great books.

Anyway, here’s what I do to “trick” them. I read the book aloud to the teachers attending the workshop, and I read it with the most passion I can muster. It’s not hard. You can read the phone book with voice, if you want to. We all laugh as I dance around excitedly, turning pages with dramatic pauses and flair, giving the illusion of voice to a book that has little. I ask teachers to talk and decide which of the 6 traits (other than conventions) this book excels with, and I find that most of them choose voice when I ask them to share.

Now at this point, before I can go any further, I have to apologize to the teachers for “tricking” them. No one likes to be tricked, and no one likes to be told they got the wrong answer, especially teachers. J But I explain that my concern with the voice trait is this: a lot of us really don’t understand what it is. A lot of us are easily fooled by ridiculous actors (like myself) who try to make us hear “written voice” by speaking dramatically.

The trick with voice as a writing trait is that it is written, and that defies the logic of what we know about the word voice. To understand written voice, we need to practice spotting it without a skilled reader swaying our opinion.

Carol Harriman, one of my personal mentors, once told me this: “Voice is the easiest to spot in good writing and the hardest to teach a kid to have.” This is truer than true. Think about how we define voice to our students. I’ve heard it abstractly called “the personality of the paper,” “the fingerprint of the author,” and “the paper’s breath.”

How do you teach a kid to have a personality or a fingerprint? How do you find a paper’s breath and then decide if it’s pleasant or terrible?

Karen McGee, another of my mentors, gave me this piece of good advice: “You can’t teach a student to have voice. You can only provide your students with multiple opportunities to experiment with voice techniques in a non-threatening way. If students have opportunities to ‘try on’ someone else’s voice as part of a series of writing assignments, they’ll end up with a voice of their own. But voice can neither be rushed nor prescribed.” Because of Karen’s advice, I made sure my students had lots of opportunities to “play” with voice.

A few years back, a college writing teacher told me, “I wish they wouldn’t call the trait voice. I personally don’t feel comfortable assessing someone’s voice. I do feel comfortable assessing my students’ style and their techniques that promote style. But Voice…that’s too personal.” That comment has affected my explanation of voice ever since.

Here’s where I currently stand with the trait of voice. I’ll leave it to you—the reader—the shape your own philosophy of how to help students find a voice through their written words. Voice is often defined vaguely. Voice can’t be directly taught, but it can be played with. Voice is different from style, but stylistic techniques make us think about voice.

WritingFix's Voice Categories
WritingFix offers resources on the following sub-skills of voice. Click a link below to see our entire collection of lessons and resources for each of these trait-based skills:

What's Voice?
A writer thinks about these bullets when working on the trait of voice:

  • The writing shows an awareness of an audience
  • The writer shows a passion towards the topic
  • The writer has used devices of style (such as figurative language), when appropriate
  • The writer has captured a tone or mood (including humor) with words, when appropriate
  • The writing shows awareness of perspective and point-of-view
WritingFix's 6-Trait Poster Set
WritingFix's Trait Post-Its

Free Poster Resource for your Classroom:

The author’s VOICE—a.k.a. you!—should be present in every piece of writing you make. Sometimes your presence needs to be strong, but sometimes it should be kept subtle. How will you ensure that your reader recognizes this as your writing?

This set of seven posters was created collectively by Dena Harrison, Mary Dunton, Nancy Thomas, Corbett Harrison, and Vivian Olds of the Northern Nevada Writing Project.

WritingFix offers a free template of Voice Post-It sized notes. These can either be printed on yellow colored paper and cut out and stapled to students' drafts, or you can--if you dare--attempt to print them on real 3 x 3 Post-It Notes.

These Post-It Notes were created by Corbett Harrison of the Northern Nevada Writing Project

  • Click here to open and print WritingFix's 7-page poster set, inspired by our "Building a House" metaphor.
  • Click here to open and print a sheet of six voice revision post-its.
  • Click here to visit WritingFix's Post-It homepage, where you can find instruction on printing our post-its on actual Post-It notes.
Imitating Real-World Voice

Webmaster's favorite imitating real-world voice resource:

The Emotional Recipe and Cookbook:
inspired by the format of recipes.

Recipes have a distinct voice.

My friend and mentor, Sue Martin, introduced the idea of making recipes for anything when we both taught creative writing years ago. I've never let go of that idea, and I'm always amazed what students can create with this idea.

The emotional recipe remains my favorite recipe imitation assignment. Click on the title or the book cover to access the entire assignment.

Everyone has a unique voice. So too does every written thing.

A dictionary entry has a voice (or style) that's different than the voice (or style) of a lost and found ad. An office memo has a different voice than a set of technical directions. A resume's voice differs from the voice of the words found on a driver's license.

One way to help students discover their own voices is to have them playfully discover different voices in writing they've seen before but never analyzed for voice. The lessons and prompts in this section are all based on this idea.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

  • In Spring of 2008, we will be launching a new collection of poetry and lyric-inspired writing prompts. Check back with us soon.

Literature Inspired Lessons:

Writing from a Different Perspective

How did Will Rogers say it? You don't really know a person until you walk around in his shoes for a day?

A great exercise for students who are still discovering their own voices is to allow them to write from another's point-of-view. Discoveries about voice are often made when "walking" with someone else's. This section's lessons and prompts all challenge writers to think outside themselves.

Webmaster's favorite different perspective resource:

So Much Depends Upon...poems:
inspired by Sharon Creech's chapter book Love That Dog.

First, this is a great lesson because students are imitating a great poet (W. C. Williams) as their pre-write; but then, they have to invent a character who might have written the poems they create and tell a longer story. Click on the title or the book cover to access the entire lesson.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

  • In Spring of 2008, we will be launching a new collection of poetry and lyric-inspired writing prompts. Check back with us soon.

Literature Inspired Lessons:

Conveying Emotion or Passion with Words

Having emotion and passion is easy. Conveying one or the other with written words is not.

When a reader understands and connects with an author's feelings, something extraordinary has happened. Achieving it with your own written words takes practice. The prompts and resources in this section invite writers to try.

Webmaster's favorite emotion & passion resource:

Giving Voice to Opposites:
inspired by Donald Hall's picture book
I Am the Dog I Am the Cat.

This voice lesson not only has student writers writing from two opposite perspectives, but it also has students attempting to convey a different emotion through the opposites. Click on the title or the image above to access the entire lesson and all its resources.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

  • In Spring of 2008, we will be launching a new collection of poetry and lyric-inspired writing prompts. Check back with us soon.

Literature Inspired Lessons:

Capturing Mood and Tone with Words :

Webmaster's favorite mood and tone resource:

Start with What Isn't There:
inspired by Stephen Kramer's non-fiction picture book Caves.

You've probably never heard of this book or this author, but trust me, get yourself a classroom copy and celebrate the mood-inducing two-page introduction. If you don't feel cold when you read Kramer's beautiful description of a cave, then you probably read his words carelessly. Kramer has style!

Then challenge your students to use Kramer's techniques to apply mood to a setting of their choice. Click on the title or the image above to access the entire lesson and its resources.

When writing has mood, the reader feels something because the author has consciously made this happen.

When writing has tone, the reader understands how the author feels about the topic...because the author wants the reader to achieve this understanding.

This section of lessons and prompts helps writers deliberately add mood or tone to their stories and poems.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

  • Serendipitous Moods and People (undergoing revision)
  • Serendipitous Moods and Places (undergoing revision)
  • Serendipitous Moods and Things (undergoing revision)

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

  • Imaginary Places and Moods: inspired by Alice McLerran's picture book Roxaboxen. (undergoing revision)

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

Literature Inspired Lessons:

Using Figurative Language for Voice

Figurative language used badly takes away from the author's voice. There's nothing worse than a forced simile, right? It's as bad as a typhoon, right?

Figurative language that sounds natural is what the lessons and prompts in this section encourage.

Webmaster's favorite figurative language resource:

We are in the process of gathering and creating on-line prompts and lessons that showcase the use of figurative language in a seamless way.

By September of 2008, we expect to have a dozen new lessons and resources posted here. Keep checking back with us.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

  • Superlatives for Voice: inspired by Barbara M. Joosse's picture book I Love You the Purplest. (undergoing revision)

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

  • In Spring of 2008, we will be launching a new collection of poetry and lyric-inspired writing prompts. Check back with us soon.

Literature Inspired Lessons:

Persuading and Becoming More Aware of Audience

Webmaster's favorite persuasive voice prompt:

I Wanna [Something]:
inspired by Karen Kaufmann Orloff's picture book
I Wanna Iguana.

Teaching friendly letters? Or do your students need a fun review of that format of writing?

Orloff's picture book showcases a charming exchange of friendly letter between boy and mom, and the exchange can be imitated between students, or between students and their parents. Click on the title of the picture to access the entire lesson and its resources.

At what age do we learn to beg? At what age do we learn that persuasive voice is just a more-controlled form of begging? Sort of...

The lessons and prompts in this section ask student writers to explore persuasive techniques and to try them out with writing.

Right-Brained Writing Prompts:

Left-Brained Writing Prompts:

Picture Book Inspired Lessons:

Chapter Book Inspired Lessons:

Poetry & Lyric Inspired Lessons:

  • In Spring of 2008, we will be launching a new collection of poetry and lyric-inspired writing prompts. Check back with us soon.

Literature Inspired Lessons:

   

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