Writing

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Writing

• Steve Graham - Vanderbilt University
• steve.graham_at_vanderbilt.edu

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Does Writing Matter?
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At Work

• Up to two-thirds of the new jobs in the near
  future will require a college education and
  high-level literacy skills, including the ability
  to write clearly, cogently, and effectively

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• At present, 90 of white collar workers and 70
  of blue collar workers say that writing is
  important to their job success
• For salaried jobs, writing has become a gateway
  to hiring and promotion

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In College

• Good writing is essential to success in college
• Writing on the SAT
• Types of Writing Required in College
• Analysis and Interpretation
• Persuasion

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In K - 12

• Writing is a primary way to determine what
  students know this places weaker writers at
  risk
• For example, slow handwriting can double the time
  it takes for a fifth grade child to complete a
  writing assignment

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• WRITING CAN ENHANCE READING
• Writing To Read (Carnegie Corp)
• 1. Writing about text improves comprehension

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How?

• Writing fosters explicitness, as the writer must
  select which ideas in text are most important.
• Writing enhances understanding, as the writer
  must put ideas about text into their own words,
  making them think carefully about what the ideas
  mean.
• Writing is integrative, as it encourages the
  writer to organize ideas from text and about text
  into a coherent whole, establishing specific
  relationships between these ideas.

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• Writing encourages reflection and transformation,
  as the permanence of writing makes it easier to
  review, reexamine, critique, and construct
  understandings of ideas from text.
• Writing forces a personal involvement with ideas
  from text, as it requires active decision making
  about what will be written and how it will be
  treated.

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• Lead into example of writing practice to
  facilitate comprehension
• LOST DOG Mixed breed, shaggy, left front leg
  amputated, missing top of right ear, partially
  blind, bad case of mange, tail was broken and
  healed crooked, some teeth gone, scars on head
  and back, has been castrated. Answers to the name

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• LUCKY

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Examples of Types of Ideas that Improve
Understanding of Text

• Writing and answering questions
• Taking structured or unstructured notes
• Summarizing text
• More extended writing involving analysis and
  interpretation or personalization

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• 2. Writing Instruction enhances word reading,
  reading fluency, and comprehension
• 3. Writing more enhances reading comprehension

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Counter-example to my next point

• A grasshopper is nervous and jumpy because he
  cannot sleep. He cannot sleep because he has no
  eye-lids. He has no eyelids because he is too
  nervous and jumpy to sleep

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• LIKEWISE, WRITING CAN ENHANCE CONTENT LEARNING
• Effect Size .23 across 26 studies
• As a result weaker writers may not be able to
  take advantage of the power of writing when
  learning or reading

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• Writing Instruction is not what it should be.

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Primary Grades - Positives

• Teachers spend at least an hour a day on writing
  or writing instruction
• Most teachers make adaptations for weaker writers
• Teachers spent 30 minutes (50 of their writing
  time) teaching basic writing skills (although too
  much time is spent teaching grammar)

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Primary Grades - Negatives

• Students spend only 20 to 30 minutes a day
  writing (with little of this time spent writing
  expository text)
• 40 of teachers make few or no adaptations
• Very little time devoted to teaching process
• Students rarely use computers to write
• Little connection between school and home in
  terms of writing
• One-third of teachers indicate their college
  teacher preparation program were inadequate

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Grades 4 to 6

• Positives
• Most teachers make adaptations

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Grades 4 6 Negatives

• 15 minutes a day spent teaching writing
• 25 minutes a day spent writing (research
  reports, writing to inform, persuasive writing
  infrequent)
• There is little computer use
• 67 of teachers indicate their college teacher
  preparation program was inadequate
• Teachers use research-based practices
  infrequently

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Secondary Schools

• Positives teachers use a variety of adaptations
  and research-supported procedures

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Secondary - Negatives

• Adaptations are made infrequently and
  research-supported practices used infrequently
• Most common writing activities do not involve
  much in the way of analysis interpretation
• One-half of teachers assign multi-paragraph
  assignments less than once a month
• Most writing and writing instruction is done by
  language arts teachers, followed by social
  studies teachers, then science teachers (not
  much at any point)

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Secondary - Negatives

• 71 of teachers indicate their college teacher
  preparation program was inadequate
• 50 of teachers indicted they are still
  inadequately prepared when in-service and
  personal efforts are thrown into the mix
• Use of word processing as a tool for writing is
  infrequent (but better than the earlier grades)

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What Do We Need to Do?A Few Thoughts

• Double the amount of time students spend writing
  in the elementary grades (at least 40 to 50
  minutes) including writing across the
  curriculum (using writing as a tool for learning)
  and more expository writing in the primary grades
• In the elementary grades, increase the amount of
  time spent on explicitly teaching process (75 to
  100 minutes a week)

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• Starting in grades 4 to 6 have students write
  multi-paragraph assignments more than once a week
• Starting in the primary grades have students
  write 3 or more reports a year

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• Make technology an integral part of the writing
  program at all grade levels
• In middle and high school make writing the
  responsibility of all content area teachers
  (double to triple the amount of time spent on
  writing and writing instruction)
• Improve teachers capacity to teach writing and
  use writing as a tool for content learning and
  enhancing reading comprehension

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Rules for Writing a Paragraph

• Write for as long as you can hold your breath
  without getting blue in the face

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• Then put in a comma

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• When you yawn put in a semicolon, and when you
  sneeze, thats time for a paragraph.

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Evidence-based Practices for Writing

• I do not have time to cover all evidence-based
  practices for improving writing, but I would like
  to cover the ones that are most powerful.
• At the end of this power-point 17 additional
  evidence-based practices are listed along with
  the documents identifying them as effective

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Writing Next

• Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies

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Effect Size -HO

• Effect Size provides a standardized measure of
  the quantitative differences between the two
  treatments, providing information on both the
  direction and magnitude of this difference.

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Strategy Instruction ES .82 N
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• Involves explicitly and systematically teaching
  students strategies for planning, revising,
  and/or editing text. Instruction is designed to
  teach students to use these strategies
  independently. Writing strategies range from
  processes such as brainstorming (which can be
  applied across genres) to strategies designed for
  specific types of writing, such as stories or
  persuasive essays.

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2. Teaching Summarization

• Involves explicitly and systematically teaching
  students how to summarize texts. This can include
  teaching strategies for summarizing text or
  instructional activities designed to improve
  students text summarization skills.
• N 4
• ES .82

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• Teach these 6 rules of summarization
• Delete unnecessary material
• Delete redundant material
• Compose a word to replace a list of items
• Compose a word to replace individual parts of an
  action
• Select a topic sentence
• Invent a topic sentence if need be

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3. Peer Assistance

• Involves students working together to plan,
  draft, and/or revise their compositions.
• N 7
• ES .75

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4. Setting Product Goals

• Involves assigning students specific goals for
  the written product they are to complete.
• N 5
• ES .70

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• IMPORTANT NOTICE If you are one of the hundreds
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  SKY Diving book, please make the following
  correction On page 8, line 7, the words state
  zip code should have read

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• pull rip cord

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5. Word Processing

• Involves having students use word processing and
  related software to write.
• N 18
• ES .55

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• When a child in an affluent neighborhood was
  asked to write a story about a poor family she
  chose her own.

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• Once upon a time there was a poor family. The
  father was poor. The mother was poor. The
  children were poor. The nannies were poor. The
  pool man was poor. The personal trainer was poor.

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6. Sentence Combining

• Involves teaching students to construct more
  complex and sophisticated sentences through
  exercises where two or more basic sentences are
  combined into a single sentence.
• N 5
• ES .50

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7. Process ApproachES .32 N 21

• Involves extended opportunities for writing
  writing for real audiences engaging in cycles of
  planning, translating, and reviewing personal
  responsibility and ownership of writing projects
  high levels of student interactions creation of
  a supportive writing environment self-reflection
  and evaluation personalized individual
  assistance and instruction and in some instances
  more systematic instruction.

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• Give me an example of a double negative.

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• Never-Never land

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• Oh thats not a double negative.
• I dont know no double negatives.

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Grammar

• Involves the explicit and systematic teaching of
  grammar (e.g., the study of parts of speech and
  sentences).
• N 11
• ES -.32

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Questions?
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• The rest of the evidence based practices start
  here

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8. Pre-Writing ActivitiesWriting Next

• Involves students engaging in activities (such as
  using a semantic web or brainstorming ideas)
  designed to help them generate or organize ideas
  for their composition.
• N 5
• ES .32

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9. Inquiry Writing Next

• Involves engaging students in activities that
  help them develop ideas and content for a
  particular writing task by analyzing immediate
  and concrete data (e.g., comparing and
  contrasting cases or collecting and evaluating
  evidence).
• N 5
• ES .32

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10. Study of Models Writing Next

• Involves students examining examples of one or
  more specific types of text and attempting to
  emulate the patterns or forms in these examples
  in their own writing.
• N 6
• ES .25

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• 11. Teach handwriting, spelling, typing
• ES .80 for writing quality
• N 6
• From Graham (in press) see references

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• Evidence-Based practices from single subject
  design research
• See Rogers Graham (2008) see references

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• 12. Explicitly teach students strategies for
  constructing paragraphs (strong positive impact
  on schematic structure of paragraphs).
• Example Strategy (1) show the type of paragraph
  (describe, show sequence, compare and contrast,
  and cause and effect) they will write in the
  first sentence (2) list details they plan to
  use (3) order the details (4) .write the
  details in complete sentences and (5) cap of the
  paragraph with a concluding, passing, or summary
  sentence.

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• 13. Explicitly and directly teach struggling
  writers basic writing skills, such as
  capitalization, punctuation, sentence
  construction, and so forth (small positive
  impact).

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• This involves the teacher modeling how to use the
  skill correctly, coupled with student practice
  applying it. In addition, taught skills are
  reviewed periodically.

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• 14. Reinforce positive aspects of students
  writing (small positive impact). This involves
  providing social praise, tangible reinforcers, or
  both, as a means of increasing specific writing
  behaviors.

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15. Have students monitor performance (small
positive impact).

• For example, students might be asked to count how
  many words they generate each time they write or
  determine if specific genre traits or elements
  (e.g., story parts such as setting, plot, action,
  resolution, and so forth) are included in their
  papers.

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• 10 Evidence-based practices from the study of
  exceptional teachers that might make a difference
• Graham (Perin 2007c) see references

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• 16. Dedicate time to writing and writing
  instruction, with writing occurring across the
  curriculum.
• 17. Involve students in various forms of writing
  over time.
• 18. Treat writing as a process, where students
  plan, draft, revise, edit, and share their work.

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• 19. Keep students engaged by involving them in
  thoughtful activities (such as planning their
  composition) versus activities that do not
  require thoughtfulness (such as completing a
  workbook page that can be finished quickly,
  leaving many students off-task).
• 20. Teach often to the whole class, in small
  groups, and with individual students this
  includes teaching students how to plan, draft,
  and revise as well as teaching more basic writing
  skills.

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• 21. Model, explain, and provide guided assistance
  when teaching.
• 22. Provide just enough support so that students
  can make progress or carry out writing tasks and
  processes, but encourage students to act in a
  self-regulated fashion, doing as much as they can
  on their own.

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• 23. Be enthusiastic about writing and create a
  positive environment, where students are
  constantly encouraged to try hard, believe that
  the skills and strategies they are learning will
  permit them to write well, and attribute success
  to effort and the tactics they are learning.

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• 24. Set high expectations for their students,
  encouraging them to surpass their previous
  efforts or accomplishments.
• 25. Adapt writing assignments and instruction to
  better meet the needs of individual students.

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Sources for Evidence

• Graham, S., Perrin, D. (2007). Writing Next
  Effective strategies to improve writing of
  adolescent middle and high school. Alliance for
  Excellence in Education. Washington, D.C.
• Graham, S., Perrin, D. (2007). A meta-analysis
  of writing instruction for adolescent students.
  Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 445-476.
• Graham, S. (in press). Teaching writing. P. Hogan
  (Ed.), Cambridge encyclopedia of language
  sciences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  UK.
• Graham, S., Perrin, D. (2007c). What we know,
  what we still need to know Teaching adolescents
  to write. Scientific Studies in Reading, 11,
  313-336.
• Rogers, L., Graham, S. (in press) A
  meta-analysis of single subject design writing
  intervention studies. Journal of Educational
  Psychology.

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Text on Teaching Writing

• Graham, S., MacArthur, C., Fitzgerald, J.
  (2007). Best practices in writing instruction.
  NY Guilford.
• Harris, K. R., Graham, S., Mason, L.,
  Friedlander, B. (2008). Powerful writing
  strategies for all students. Baltimore, MD
  Brookes.
• Graham, S., Harris, K. R. (2005). Writing
  better Teaching writing processes and
  self-regulation to students with learning
  problems. Baltimore, MD Brookes.

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Links for Teaching Writing Strategies

• http//shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid
  602084This
• http//iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/index.html
• http//iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/pow/chalcycle.h
  tm
• http//iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/srs/chalcycle.h
  tm http//hobbs.vanderbilt.edu/projectwrite/ 
• www.SchwabLearning.org
• www.unl.edu/csi