Writing
Writing is an often overlooked component of literacy, but the ability to write clearly and communicate effectively is critical to students' classroom and workplace success. Thoughtful writing assignments can provide a means to enhance students' vocabulary, comprehension, and spelling skills.
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A Student's Perspective on Writing
Eli tells us what it is like to have dysgraphia. Regina Richards, a well-known expert on dysgraphia (and Eli's mom), explains how to help children who struggle with the challenges Eli describes. Practical techniques discussed include POWER (Prepare, Organize, Write, Edit, Revise).
What does research tell us about effective teaching techniques to help adolescents develop their writing skills? This article summarizes Writing Next, a 2007 study of adolescent writing instruction.
Academic Language: Everyone's "Second" Language
Being able to speak English fluently does not guarantee that a student will be able to use language effectively in academic settings. Fluency must be combined with higher order thinking skills to create an "academic language," which allows students to effectively present their ideas in a way that others will take seriously. The author, an ELL teacher, describes her use of "protocols" (a cheat sheet of sentence starters) to build students' cognitive academic language proficiency.
An Introduction to Analytical Text Structures
Many students are used to writing narratives — stories, description, even poetry, but have little experience with analytical writing. This article is an introduction to six analytical text structures, useful across content areas. See also Analytical Writing in the Content Areas.
Analytical Writing in the Content Areas
Because writing is thinking, the organization of students' writing reflects both the structure of their thinking and the depth of their understanding. Students should be writing in all their classes, explaining what they know and how they know it. Thus, it's essential for content-area teachers to give students meaningful analytical writing assignments. Read An Introduction to Analytical Text Structures for more information and graphic organizers to help with writing instruction.
Assistive Technology Tools: Writing
Learn about assistive technology tools — from abbreviation expanders to word-recognition software programs — that address your child's specific writing difficulties.
Cell Phone Novels: 140 Characters at a Time
Cell phone novels are short stories designed to be read on cellular telephones. This article examines the Japanese trend and its potential in America.
Extended Writing-to-Learn Strategies
Writing enables students to process, organize, formulate, and extend their thinking about what they have been learning. In addition, teachers can also assign writing to help students evaluate what they know and understand about a topic. These writing-to-learn strategies help foster students' abilities to make predictions, build connections, raise questions, discover new ideas, and promote higher-level thinking.
Giving Feedback on Student Writing
Learn how to conduct effective peer and teacher writing conferences to improve student writing.
Building on their research in secondary classrooms, the Center on English Learning and Achievement has developed guidelines that describe six essential features of effective literacy instruction and how teachers can implement them.
Help Students Generate Ideas Through Prewriting
Learn how to model a range of prewriting techniques and introduce several mnemonics to help students organize their writing.
Key Literacy Component: Writing
Students who don’t write well aren’t able to learn and communicate effectively. This article explains what good writing skills are and how to help struggling young writers gain those skills through proper instruction.
Making Writing Instruction a Priority in America's Middle and High Schools
Sometimes writing is seen as the flip side of reading, and it is assumed that students who are proficient readers will naturally be proficient writers. While reading and writing are complementary skills, students do not become skilled writers without explicit instruction. This policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education examines how writing can be taught in secondary schools and how policy can encourage more teachers to undertake writing instruction.
Speech Recognition for Learning
Speech recognition, also referred to as speech-to-text or voice recognition, is technology that recognizes speech, allowing voice to serve as the "main interface between the human and the computer." This Info Brief discusses how current speech recognition technology facilitates student learning, as well as how the technology can develop to advance learning in the future.
It's a misconception that writing teachers simply tell students to write and wait to see what happens. Teachers should provide instruction in and exposure to various elements of writing to help students understand what good writing is.
Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations
Writing is a complex operation requiring knowledge of text structure, syntax, vocabulary, and topic, and sensitivity to audience needs; so it is not surprising that many teens find writing challenging. This article identifies the qualities of strong writing instruction, and offers advice to teachers for incorporating writing instruction into their practice, using tools like notebooks and journals, and sharing strategies that reinforce the importance of pre-writing and revision.
The Nation's Report Card: Writing 2007
U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.
This report presents the results of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing assessment, which was administered to a sampling of 8th and 12th graders in U.S. public and private schools. Average writing scores were higher in 2007 than in previous assessments in 2002 and 1998.
For 8th graders:
- The average writing score was 3 points higher than in 2002 and 6 points higher than in 1998.
- The percentage of students performing at or above the Basic level increased from 85 percent in 2002 to 88 percent and was also higher than in 1998
- The percentage of students performing at or above the Proficient level was higher than in 1998 but showed no significant change since 2002.
For 12th graders:
- The average writing score was 5 points higher than in 2002 and 3 points higher than in 1998.
- The percentage of students performing at or above the Basic level increased from 74 percent in 2002 to 82 percent and was also higher than in 1998.
- The percentage of students performing at or above the Proficient level was higher than in 1998 but showed no significant change since 2002.
Understanding Why Students Avoid Writing
If parents and teachers understand why some students hate writing , they can targeted solution to address students' reluctance. Learn some reasons students avoid writing, and how increasing the automaticity of writing skills and underscoring an appreciation for the purpose of writing can help.
Using Assistive Technology to Support Writing
Technology—and especially the subset of technology tools known as assistive technology—can be an effective element of the writing curriculum for students with disabilities. Assistive technology (AT) can be defined as a technology that allows someone to accomplish a critical educational or life task. Since writing is so integral to school success, AT is often indicated to assist students with disabilities. In this article, CITEd looks at how technology can support students' writing.
Writing Disabilities: An Overview
Learn from an expert why some kids with learning disabilities struggle with writing and how some instructional approaches can help.
Writing Next
Graham, S. and Perin, D. (2007). Writing Next. New York: Carnegie Corporation.
Writing well is not just an option for young people — it is a necessity. Along with reading comprehension, writing skill is a predictor of academic success and a basic requirement for participation in civic life and in the global economy. Yet every year in the United States large numbers of adolescents graduate from high school unable to write at the basic levels required by colleges or employers. In addition, every school day, 7,000 young people drop out of high school, many of them because they lack the basic literacy skills to meet the growing demands of the high school curriculum. Because the definition of literacy includes both reading and writing skills, poor writing proficiency should be recognized as an intrinsic part of this national literacy crisis. This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help 4th- to 12th-grade students in our nation's schools.
Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading
Graham, S., and Hebert, M.A. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Writing to Read is a new Carnegie Corporation report published by the Alliance for Excellent Education which finds that while reading and writing are closely connected, writing is an often-overlooked tool for improving reading skills and content learning. Writing to Read identifies three core instructional practices that have been shown to be effective in improving student reading: having students write about the content-area texts they have read; teaching students the writing skills and processes that go into creating text; and increasing the amount of writing students do.
Writing, Technology and Teens
Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., Smith, A.,and Macgill, A.R.,(2008). Writing, Technology and Teens. Washington, DC: The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project and National Commission on Writing surveyed teens and their parents about teens' definitions of writing, the influence of e-communication—email, text messaging, etc.— on traditional writing skills; the types and frequency of writing assignments students receive; and ways that writing instruction could be improved.
