Welcome to

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Welcome toWhats Next in the Teaching of
Writing?
August 8, 2006 Presentation by Judy Buchanan and
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl National Writing Project
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Lets see who is in the room
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Goals of the session

• To look at the call for intensive writing as
  part of a comprehensive literacy program for
  adolescents
• To speculate about three emerging directions for
  secondary writing programs
• To give you a chance to reflect on what this
  might mean for your teaching and curriculum
• To connect you with colleagues through the Oregon
  writing project sites who can think with you and
  your staff about whats next in the teaching of
  writing

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But first, a word about the National Writing
Project

• and the Oregon writing project sites in
  particular

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National Writing Project Sites
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Oregon Sites
Site List
Oregon WP at Eastern Oregon University Eastern
Oregon University, La Grande http//www.eou.edu/ow
p Oregon WP at Lewis and Clark College Lewis and
Clark College, Portland http//www.lclark.edu/dept
/nwi/owp.html Oregon WP at Southern Oregon
University Southern Oregon University,
Ashland http//www.souwritingproject.org Oregon
WP at the University of Oregon University of
Oregon, Eugene http//owp.uoregon.edu Oregon WP
at Willamette University Willamette University,
Salem http//www.willamette.org/owp
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What goes on at a writing project site?

• Invitational Summer Institute
• Special topics institutes, conferences,
  continuity meetings, teacher-research groups,
  etc.
• Professional development offerings for schools
  and districts

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Well come back to the NWP and the Oregon writing
project sites at the end
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Reading Next A Vision for Action and Research
in Middle and High School Literacy

• Key Elements in Programs Designed to Improve
  Adolescent Literacy Achievement in Middle and
  High Schools

http//www.all4ed.org/publications/ReadingNext/
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The 15 Key Elements

• Infrastructure Improvements
• Extended time for literacy
• Professional development
• Ongoing summative assessment of students and
  programs
• Teacher teams
• Leadership
• A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program

• Instructional Improvements
• Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
• Effective instructional principles embedded in
  content
• Motivation and self-directed learning
• Text-based collaborative learning
• Strategic tutoring
• Diverse texts
• A technology component
• Ongoing formative assessment of students

Intensive writing
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Thats because literacy is about

• doing things with written language
• reading, and writing.
• It rests on the foundation of how
• we do things with language itself
• speaking and listening,
• image and sound.

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As Donald Graves used to say

• Writers write
• reading

• Readers read
• writing

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Whats next? 1

• Greater emphasis and attention to writing overall

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Recent examples

• Commission on Writing
• http//www.writingcommission.org
• National Panel on Second Language Learners
• http//www.cal.org/natl-lit-panel/reports/Executi
  ve_Summary.pdf
• New SAT and ACT tests with writing samples
  http//www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/ab
  out/sat/writing.html
• http//www.act.org/aap/writing/index.html
• Emerging interest in students as writers in a
  digital world

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And our own survey of public opinion demonstrates
that the American public wants more attention
paid to writing

• Nearly 7 in 10 Americans (69) believe writing
  should be taught across all subjects and grade
  levels
• The majority of Americans agree that learning to
  write well helps students perform in all subjects
  and improves students standardized test scores
• Helping teachers teach writing is a priority for
  most Americans

A goal of the NWP is to place a writing project
site within reach of every teacher in the
country. There are currently 195 writing project
sites which serve over 135,000 teachers per year.
http//www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nwpr/2
300 http//www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nw
pr/922
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Recommendations from Writing and School Reform,
by the Commission on Writing for Americas
Families, Schools, and Colleges (pp. 28-29)

• Perseverance Improvement is slow, incremental,
  and builds on itself
• Practice-Based Inquiry Develop and test
  practical frameworks for improving the teaching
  and learning of writing in the classroom
• Public Engagement Ensure that legislators,
  administrators, educators, and the public
  understand the importance of writing and how it
  fits into the reform agenda
• Partnerships Establish partnerships with other
  school and community organizations and with
  higher education

http//www.writingcommission.org/
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Whats next? 2

• Greater emphasis on texts at work in the world

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National Assessment of Educational Progress,
20112020

• Directive to assess writing with a view toward
  Postsecondary Preparedness
• The NAEP in Writing should assess skills recent
  high school graduates need to meet postsecondary
  expectations for writing

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Comments from post-secondary stakeholders

• We took a careful look at what writing students
  were expected to do at our university.
  Two-thirds of the assignments were either about
  analyzing information or argument or synthesizing
  information from several sources. They needed to
  articulate a thesis or position, assess and use
  evidence, and consider and incorporate counter
  arguments. Of course we want them to be able to
  plan, draft and revise and to write correctly.
  But the point of the planning and the revising is
  to make a strong argument.

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Postsecondary Expectations for Writing

• Kinds of writing recent high school graduates are
  expected to do in postsecondary education
• Persuasive essays or position papers
• Analysis of literature, of problems, of issues,
  etc.
• Research papers and critiques of research
• Reports and summaries
• Journals and personal essays
• Creative writing (e.g., fiction, parodies)
• And increasingly these are multimedia products

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Comments from post-secondary stakeholders

• Sure, we want our employees to write clearly and
  correctly. Thats the bottom line in being
  understood. But the real concern is with getting
  a clear, concise analysis of a problem or a
  situation with thoughtful recommendations about
  what can be done. Its all about leading to
  action for us.

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Comments from post-secondary stakeholders

• Employees in the military write all the time if
  you count up the bits in the stream of e-mail,
  memos, reports, etc. They have to be clear,
  direct, unambiguous. And the thinking behind
  them has to be very, very careful. One thing the
  military will teach you is that lives really do
  ride on what you write and how you write it.

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Postsecondary Expectations for Writing

• Kinds of writing recent high school graduates are
  expected to do in the workplace and military
• Emails and memos (e.g., announcements, agendas
  and programs, recommendations)
• Letters (e.g., application letters, letters of
  complaint, thank you letters, letters of request,
  customer service responses)
• Reports (e.g., sales reports, meeting minutes,
  accident/injury reports, performance reports,
  maintenance reports)
• Proposals (e.g., detailed project plans for
  proposals for problem solving, work plans to
  organize tasks)
• Manuals (e.g., employee policies or instructions)
• Summaries (e.g., trip, interview and meeting
  summaries)
• Other (e.g., advertisements, news releases,
  newsletters, brochures/flyers, job descriptions)

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This move toward texts at work in the world is
behind the renewed attention to

• Audience and purpose
• Genre as a focus of direct teaching
• Subject-specific writing and writing in the
  disciplines
• Writing in the context of problem/project-based
  learning
• Writing connected to service learning, community
  outreach, youth leadership
• Publishing and digital dissemination projects

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Lets take a look at an example from the most
recent NAEP

• Find the handout showing the newspaper article
  Studies Show Students Need To Sleep Late Night
  Owls Versus Early Birds
• Take a few minutes to study this actual NAEP
  prompt. Then, talk with your neighbor about how
  you would approach this task if you were the
  writer and had to respond to the task in 25
  minutes the time frame for a NAEP response.

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Actual NAEP prompt used in 2005 NAEP Writing
Assessment

• Prompt Imagine that the article shown on the
  next slide appeared in your local newspaper. Read
  the article carefully, then write a letter to
  your principal arguing for or against the
  proposition that classes at your school should
  begin and end much later in the day. Be sure to
  give detailed reasons to support your argument
  and make it convincing.

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Studies Show Students Need to Sleep LateNight
Owls Versus Early Birds
The Journal of Medicine announced today the
results of several recent studies on the sleep
patterns of teenagers and adults. These studies
show that adults and teenagers often have
different kinds of sleep patterns because they
are at different stages in the human growth
cycle. The study on teenagers sleep patterns
showed that changes in teenagers growth hormones
are related to sleeping patterns. In general,
teenagers energy levels are at their lowest in
the morning, between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. To make
the most of students attention span and ability
to learn, the study showed that most teenagers
need to stay up late at night and to sleep late
in the morning. They called this pattern the
night owl syndrome.
Studies of adults (over 30 years of age) showed
the opposite sleep pattern. On average, adults
energy levels were at their lowest at night
between 9 p.m. and 12 midnight and at their
highest between 6 and 9 a.m. In addition, a study
of adults of different ages revealed that as
adults get older they seem to wake up earlier in
the morning. Thus, adults need to go to sleep
earlier in the evening. Researchers called this
sleep pattern the early bird syndrome. Research
ers claim that these studies should be reviewed
by all school systems and appropriate changes
should be made to the daily school schedule.
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If you were to do the prompt for real, (not for a
test) you would need to

• Look carefully at the research
• Study the sociological and cultural implications
• Conduct focus-groups with stakeholders in the
  community
• Examine the financial impacts
• Come to a reasoned and defensible recommendation
• Write numerous texts to explain and argue for
  the position to be delivered in varying occasions
  and to diverse audiences

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Whats next? 3

• Making it real!
• The attention to writing, and to adolescent
  literacy more generally, connects to the interest
  in reforming our high schools and middle schools
  to be more engaging, demanding, significant
  places for young people to do meaningful work.

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So, if we are to make this an ambitious moment,
what does that mean for us as teachers and
administrators?
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One thing it may mean is that we need the support
of colleagues who share our ambitions and our
commitments to students.
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Oregon Sites
Site List
Oregon WP at Eastern Oregon University Eastern
Oregon University, La Grande http//www.eou.edu/ow
p Oregon WP at Lewis and Clark College Lewis and
Clark College, Portland http//www.lclark.edu/dept
/nwi/owp.html Oregon WP at Southern Oregon
University Southern Oregon University,
Ashland http//www.souwritingproject.org Oregon
WP at the University of Oregon University of
Oregon, Eugene http//owp.uoregon.edu Oregon WP
at Willamette University Willamette University,
Salem http//www.willamette.org/owp
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For more information, visit www.writingproject.org
August 8, 2006 Judy Buchanan and Elyse
Eidman-Aadahl National Writing
Project University of California 2105 Bancroft
Way 1042 Berkeley, CA 94720 510-642-0963