Transcript WRITING NEXT - Emerson Alternative High School

WRITING NEXT
Sara Maughan
Forward
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The human instinct to express our feelings, thoughts and
experiences in a lasting form has been around for a very long time.
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People wanted to leave behind a legacy, a message about who they
were, what they had done and see, and what they believed in.
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Writing is not just a way to transfer information, it is a process of
learning and hence, of education.
Pg. 1
Executive Summary
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Writing skill is a predictor of academic success
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Writing is a basic requirement for participation in civic life
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Low achieving writers refers to students whose writing
skills are not adequate to meet classroom demands
Pg. 3
Executive Summary
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Eleven Elements of Effective Adolescent Writing
Instruction
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Writing strategies
Summarization
Collaborative Writing
Specific Product Goals
Word Processing
Sentence Combining
Prewriting
Inquiry Activities
Process Writing Approach
Study of Models
Writing for Content Learning
Introduction
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Cause for Alarm
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Seventy percent of students in grades 4-12 are
low-achieving writers.
Only 70% of high school students graduate on
time with a regular diploma.
Nearly one third of high school graduates are not
ready for college-level English composition
courses.
U.S. graduates’ literacy skills are lower than those
of graduates in most industrialized nations.
Introduction
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Low-Achieving Writers: Scope of the Problem
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It is often assumed that adolescents who are proficient
readers must be proficient writers, too.
Reading and writing don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
Reading and writing draw from the same pool of
background knowledge.
What improves reading does not always improve writing.
Students need proper instruction to become better writers.
Introduction
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Consequences
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“The Explosion of electronic and wireless communication in
everyday life brings writing skills into play as never before.”
pg. 8
Writing proficiency is critical in the workplace and affects
hiring and promotion decisions.
Those who have difficulty writing are not prepared to meet
the demands of college.
Many postsecondary students enroll in remedial writing
courses.
Many 2-year colleges are not equipped to teach writing
effectively to such a large number of students.
Introduction
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Why Writing is Important
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“Most contexts of life (school, the workplace, and the
community) call for some level of writing skill, and each
context makes overlapping, but not identical demands.” pg.
9
Writing plays two roles in school.
 Writing is a skill that draws on the use of planning,
evaluating, and revising text.
 Writing is means of extending and deepening students’
knowledge-a tool for learning subject matter
 “Because these roles are closely linked, Reading Next
recommended that language arts teachers should use
context-area texts to teach reading and writing skills. . .”pg.
10
11 Key Elements
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A mixture of these elements is likely to
generate the biggest return.
The 11 Key elements are not a cure all. Each
individual student may need a different
combination of elements.
“Writing quality is defined here in terms of
coherently organized essays containing welldeveloped and pertinent ideas, supporting
examples, and appropriate detail.” pg. 14
11 Key Elements of Adolescent
Writing Instruction
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Writing Strategies
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Explicitly teaching strategies for planning, revising, and editing has a strong
impact on the quality of their writing.
Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD)
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Develop background knowledge
Describe it
Model it
Memorize it- the student memorizes the steps of the strategy/mnemonic
Support it
Independent use- students use the strategy with little support
Example mnemonics
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PLAN
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Pay attention to the prompt, List the main idea, Add supporting ideas, Number
your ideas.
WRITE
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Work from your plan to develop you thesis statement, Remember your goals,
Include transition words for each paragraph, Try to use different kinds of
sentences, and Exciting, interesting, $10,000 words.
11 Key Elements of Adolescent
Writing Instruction
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Summarizing
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Collaborative Writing
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Teaching adolescents to summarize text had a consistent,
strong, positive effect on their ability to write good
summaries.
Collaborative writing involves developing instructional
arrangements whereby students work together to plan,
draft, revise, and edit their compositions.
Specific Product Goals
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“Setting product goals involves assigning students specific,
reachable goals for the writing they are to complete. It
includes identifying the purpose of the assignment as well
as characteristics of the final product.” Pg. 17
11 Key Elements of Adolescent
Writing Instruction
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Word Processing
 It allows the writer to add, delete, and move text easily.
 Word processing has a consistently positive impact on writing.
Sentence Combining
 Sentence combining involves teaching students to construct
more complex and sophisticated sentences through exercises in
which two or more basic sentences are combined into a single
sentence.
 It enhances the quality of a student’s writing.
Pre-Writing
 Engages students in activities designed to help them generate or
organize ideas.
 Pre-writing includes gathering possible information before writing.
11 Key Elements of Adolescent
Writing Instruction
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Inquiry Activities
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Process Writing Approach
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This element stresses activities that emphasize extended opportunities for
writing, writing for real audiences, self-reflection, personalized instruction
and goals, and cycles of planning, translating, and reviewing.
Study of Models
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Inquiry means engaging students in activities that help them develop ideas
and content for a particular writing task by analyzing immediate, concrete
data.
“Effective inquiry activities in writing are characterized by a clearly specified
goal, analysis of concrete and immediate data, use of specific strategies to
conduct the analysis, and applying what was learned.” Pg. 19
Study of models includes providing students with examples before writing.
Writing for Content Area Learning
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This element provides a way for writing to be used as a tool to learn content
material.
READING NEXT
Sara Maughan
Executive Summary
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“American youth need strong literacy skills to succeed in school and in life. Students who
do not acquire these skills find themselves at a serious disadvantage in social settings, as
civil participants, and in the working world.” Pg. 3
The Recommendations
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Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
Effective instructional principles embedded in content
Motivation and self-directed learning
Text-based collaborative learning
Strategic tutoring
Diverse texts
Intensive writing
A technology component
Ongoing formative assessment of students
Extended time for literacy
Professional development
Ongoing summative assessment of students and programs
Teacher teams
Leadership
A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program
Introduction
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Cause for Alarm
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More than 8 million 4-12 graders are struggling readers.
A Literary Crisis
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One of the most commonly cited reasons for students
dropping out is a lack of literacy skills.
“Part of what makes it so difficult to meet the needs of
struggling readers and writers in middle and high school is
that these students experiences a wide range of
challenges that require a wide range of interventions.” pg.
8
Students become less motivated to read in later grades
because they were not engaged in previous ones.
Society is rapidly changing and thus the need for students
to be literate is increasing.
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
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Comprehension strategies
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Comprehensions monitoring and metacognition instruction
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Involves the teacher reading texts aloud, making her own use of strategies
and practices apparent to her students
Scaffolding instruction
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Instruction that teaches students to become ware of hoe they understand
while they read
Teacher modeling
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Instruction that explicitly gives students strategies that aid them in
comprehending texts
Involves teachers giving high support for students practicing new skills and
then slowly decreasing that support to increase student ownership and selfsufficiency
Apprenticeship models
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Involves teachers engaging students in a content-centered learning
relationship
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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Effective Instructional Principles Embedded in
Content
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This element has two forms
 First form
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When instructional principles are embedded in content, the
language arts teacher does not simply teach a technique as an
abstract skill, but teaches it using content-area materials.
Students should receive instruction and then practice their new
skills using these materials.
Second form
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Content-area do not become reading teachers, but they should
emphasize reading and writing practice that go along with their
subject.
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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Motivation and Self-Directed Learning
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Building choices into the school day is an important way to
reawaken student engagement.
Provide students with opportunities to select for themselves
the materials they read and topics they research
Independent reading time
Self-regulation is only developed when students are given
choices and the instructional support and aids needed to
succeed at their chosen tasks.
Promote relevancy by tuning it to your students’ lives
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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Text-based Collaborative Learning
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Strategic Tutoring
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Instruction in general education classes should be differentiated to allow students access to important content.
Students need to be taught “how to learn.”
Tutors teach learning strategies
The goal is to empower adolescents to complete similar tasks independently in the future.
Diverse Texts
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When students work in small groups, they should not simply discuss a topic, but interact with each other around a text
Provide scaffolding for engagement at every ability level in the class and promote better oral language and contentarea skills by giving the students concrete problems to discuss and solve.
Diverse texts that present a wide range of topics at a variety of reading levels.
High interest and low readability
The range of topics should include a wide variety of cultural, linguistic, and demographic groups.
It is crucial to have a range of texts in the classroom that link to multiple ability levels and connect to students’
background experiences.
Intensive Writing
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Writing instruction improves reading comprehension
Many of the skills involved in writing, such as grammar and spelling, reinforce reading skills, and effective interventions
will help middle and high school students read like writers and write like readers.
Attention should be given not only to increasing the amount of writing instruction, but also increasing the amount of
writing students do.
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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A Technology Component
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Ongoing Formative Assessment of Students
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These formative assessments are specifically designed to inform instruction on a very frequent basis
so that adjustments in instruction can be made to ensure that students are on pace to reach mastery
targets.
Extended Time for Literacy
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“Technology is both a facilitator of literacy and medium of literacy. Effective adolescent literacy
programs therefore should use technology as both an instructional tool and an instructional topic.”
pg. 19
Technology can help teachers provide needed support
Technology is changing the reading and writing demands of modern society.
“The panel strongly argued the need for two to four hours of literacy-connected learning daily.” pg.
20
Teachers need to realize they are not just teaching content knowledge but also ways of reading and
writing specific to a subject area.
Professional Development
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Long-term professional development is more likely to promote lasting, positive changes in teacher
knowledge and practice.
Professional development opportunities should be built into the regular school schedule, with
consistent opportunities to learn about new research and practices as well as opportunities to
implement and reflect upon new ideas.
15 Key Elements of Effective
Literacy Programs
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Ongoing Summative Assessment of Students and Programs
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Teacher Teams
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Ensures that the school structure supports coordinated instruction and planning in an
interdisciplinary teacher team.
Teacher meet regularly to discuss students they have in common and to align instruction.
Meeting regularly allows teachers to plan for consistency in instruction.
Leadership
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These assessments are designed specifically for implementation with continuous progressmonitoring systems. They allow teachers to track students throughout a school year, and ideally,
over an entire academic career.
Without a principal’s clear commitment and enthusiasm, a curricular and instructional reform has no
more chance of succeeding than any other school wide reform.
“It is critical that a principal assumes the role of an instructional leader, who demonstrates
commitment and participates in the school community.
A Comprehensive and Coordinated Literacy Program
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This is not obtainable without other infrastructural improvements.
Closely aligned to leadership and the establishment of teacher teams.
Requires that teachers coordinate their instruction to reinforce important strategies and concepts
It is important to develop a comprehensive literacy program that will successfully address the needs
of all their students.