Effective Writing Instruction for Struggling Writers

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Effective Writing Instruction for Struggling
Writers
Developed byRegion IV Education Service
CenterIn collaboration with theTexas Education
Agency
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News Flash
Children want to write. They want to write the
first day they attend school. This is no
accident. Before they went to school, they
marked up walls, pavements, and newspapers with
crayons, chalk, pens or pencilsanything that
makes a mark. The childs mark say I
am. Graves, 1983
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Struggling Writers

• Compose very little considering time allocated
  for writing
• Lack awareness of how to organize the writing
  and produce less coherent papers
• Leave out critical information

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Struggling Writers
Have difficulty adding detail to the composition
Experience difficulty with word choice,
handwriting, mechanics, identifying and
correcting errors
Are not fluent writers
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Struggling Writers
Lack procedural knowledge about the writing
process
Have difficultyselecting topics andgenerating
ideas
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Struggling Writers
Are unaware of audience, purpose, and form
demands
Do not understand that writing is a means of
conveying a message
Do not monitor their own progress
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Good News
We have made more progress in written expression
for students with disabilities than in any other
academic area. Vaughn, Gersten, and Chard (2002)
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Components of Effective Writing Instruction for
Struggling Writers
A classroom climate that motivates students to write An emphasis on the writing process
Continual monitoring of student progress Specific instruction and strategies to meet the needs of the struggling writer
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Motivation

• Serves as a critical element in all learning
• Focuses or energizes students attention,
  emotions, and activity
• Plays a central role in the writing process

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Create a Classroom Climate that Motivates
Students
Invite students to learn
Provide sufficient time with quality needs-based
instruction
Base all instruction on the TEKS
Support student learning through scaffolded
instruction
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Invitations to Learn
An effective classroom teachers actions and
words will meet students needs and desires for
Affirmation
Contribution
C.A. Tomlinson, 2002
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Invitations to Learn

• An effective classroom teachers actions and
  words will meet students needs and desire for

Purpose
Challenge
Power
C.A. Tomlinson, 2002
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Sufficient Time with Quality Needs-Based
Instruction
Writing taught once or twice a week is just
frequent enough to remind students that they
cant write and teachers that they cant
teach. Graves, 1983
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Sufficient Time with Quality Needs-Based
Instruction

• Teachers need to create as many opportunities as
  possible to teach writing.

Students should be working on pieces of writing
all of the time.
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Sufficient Time with Quality Needs-Based
Instruction
Struggling writers require more time and more
extended, structured, and explicit instruction to
develop skills and strategies essential for
writing. Catts Kamhi, 1999
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TEKS-Based InstructionVertical Alignment of TEKS
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All educators serving a struggling student must
meet regularly and have purposeful discussions
about the instructional needs of the student.

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Scaffolded Instruction
Scaffolded instruction is the temporary support
that allows a student to move from his/her
current knowledge and skills to a higher level of
competence, moving from dependence on the
teacher/others to independence as a learner.
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Scaffolded Instruction to Support Student Learning
Explicit instruction is provided at the initial
level of student proficiency
The design or use of the instructional strategy
is adapted
Substantial support is given early and the
support is gradually reduced as the student
gains independence
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Continuum of Teacher Support for Writing
Struggling Writer
Skilled Writer
High support
Moderate support
Low/No support
Dependent
Independent
Teacher-directed
Student-directed
Prompted assistance
Unprompted assistance
Instruction
Integration
Adapted from Fountas Pinnell, 1996
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Scaffolded Writing Instruction

• Modeling
• Mini-lessons
• Conferences
• Teacher/student
• Student/student
• A variety of grouping patterns
• Technology use

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Support Provided Through Teacher Modeling
Modeling or demonstrating is an important part of
all good instruction, Including mini-lesson
instruction.
Direct Writing Instruction
Examples of Good Writing
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Mini-Lessons

• Are of short duration (1020 minutes)
• Demonstrate important aspects of the writing
  process with clear, powerful examples
• Focus on a specific writing principle or
  procedure
• Are interactive and meet students needs

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Teacher/Student Writing Conferences

• The teacher

Helps the writer, not the writing
Points out specific positive aspects in the
writing and reinforces strengths
Identifies specific instructional needs
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Teacher/Student Writing Conferences

• The teacher

Assists students in setting goals
Learns how the writer is progressing in his/her
application of the writing process and concepts
taught during mini-lessons
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Peer Conferences
Give students real and immediate audiences for
their work
Improve student writing
Help develop effective oral communication skills
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Peer Conferences
Enhance student self-esteem
Assist students in becoming self-evaluators
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Grouping Patterns
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Technology and Writing Instruction

• Computers
• Are enjoyable to use
• Encourage risk-taking
• Allow for revision and editing
• Give professional results

When students compose on computers, they write
more and both the quality of their writing and
their attitude toward writing improve. Bangert
-Drowns, 1993
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Technology Use

• Provides assistance for
• Organizational assistance
• Grammar correction
• Speech synthesis
• Visually highlighting words
• Word cueing and word prediction
• Voice recognition

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The Writing Process
Shifts emphasis from a product-driven approach
to a process-driven approach
Provides effective writing instruction
Enforces the process all writers go through as
they develop their compositions
Helps develop positive attitudes towards writing
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Stages in the Writing Process
Prewriting
Reflective
Recursive
Publishing
Drafting
Revising
Editing
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Using the Writing Process with Struggling Writers

• Allows students to be involved in writing
  regularly for meaningful purposes and real
  audiences
• Focuses on meaning first and then skills in the
  context of meaning
• Accommodates individual differences allowing
  students to work at their own level and pace
• Involves collaboration

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Using the Writing Process with Struggling Writers
Provides opportunities for generalization and
transfer of learning
Helps establish independent problem-solvers both
in writing and in the classroom in general
Creates writers
Gives student control of their writing
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Using the Writing Process with Struggling Writers
The reason writing helps children with learning
disabilities is that they do far more than learn
to write they learn to come to terms with a new
image of themselves as thinkersthinkers with a
message to convey to the world.
Graves, 1991
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Prewriting

• Helps the writer explore the possibilities in the
  writing task
• Stimulates and enlarges the writers thoughts
• Moves the writer from the stage of thinking about
  a writing task to the act of writing
• Develops a plan to help the writer choose the
  topic, purpose, audience, and form or structure

Do not overlook prewriting activities!
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Drafting

• As the first version of writing, the purpose of
  drafting is to put thoughts onto paper.
• Writings recursive nature means that drafting
  will be revisited
  again
  
  and
  again
  
  and
  
  again.

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Revising
Improves the composition so that the product is
more interesting and understandable to the reader
Clarifies meaning and expands ideas
Helps writers learn the craft of writing
Revising means seeing again.
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Editing

• Helps the writer
• Understand that conventions convey meaning
• Make corrections to errors in the conventions of
  writing, including spelling, grammar,
  capitalization, and punctuation

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Publishing
Helps the writer focus on the communication of meaning to a real audience, thus giving a purpose for writing efforts
Acknowledges that writing is genuine communication
Is an effective strategy for motivating writing
Practices the highest level of revision and editing skills
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Monitoring Student Progress

• Formal measurements
• Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS)
• State Developed Alternative Assessment (SDAA)
• Additional norm- or criterion-referenced tests

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Monitoring Student Progress

• Informal measurements

Observation
Conferences
Writing samples
Anecdotal records
Checklists
Rubrics
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Specific Instruction and Strategies for the
Struggling Writer
Reinforce core instruction taught to all students
Provide scaffolded instruction to support use of
strategies taught in core learning to struggling
writers
Provide deeper scaffolded instructional
strategies that support the same learning
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The Reading and Writing Connection
Writers who are readers
Have a wider knowledge base to draw from for
topic selection and personal connections
Practice and study language in ways that are
closely related to real-world situations
Become cognizant of what good writing looks and
sounds like
Use knowledge of text organization, conventions,
and elements of style to aid in comprehension
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Writing Across the Curriculum

• Writing
• Increases recall and understanding of information
• Enhances the thinking of students
• Facilitates the learning of the content

Writings greatest gift Is the ability to help
us learn. Moore,
1994
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Content Area Writing

• Writing tasks should include

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Benefits of Journal Writing
Encourages risk taking
Provides a safe private place to write
Makes thinking visible
Provides opportunities for reflection
Validates personal experiences and feeling
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Benefits of Journal Writing
Promotes the development of written language
conventions
Provides a vehicle for evaluation
Promotes fluency in writing and reading
Provides a personal record for students
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Strategic Writing Instruction
Can be presented to students through mini-lessons
and conferences
Makes students aware of when, where, how, and why
strategies work
Is tailored to the needs of individual students
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Steps for Writing Skills and Strategy Instruction

• Identify the skill/strategy
• Preteach vocabulary or concepts
• Describe the components
• Explain strategys use
• Model while writing a com-position
• Instruct students to memorize and rehearse
  strategies
• Help students work toward independent mastery

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Scaffolded Instruction in Action

• Initial core instruction

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Scaffolded Instruction Throughout the Writing
Process
Prewriting Drafting Revising Editing Publishing
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Prewriting Difficulties
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Drafting and RevisingDifficulties

• Composing very little and omitting critical
  information
• Developing complete sentences/paragraphs
• Developing an idea
• Producing focused and coherent papers
• Writing fluently

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Editing Difficulties
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar Use
Sentence Structure
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Invitations to Learn
In a writing process classroom, how can teachers
provide support for these five areas that will
motivate students to want to write?
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Remember
The invitation to learn comes from
YOU