Infusing Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum

Steve Graham

Vanderbilt University

Writing Is Critical

In School

• Writing is the primary means for judging students’ knowledge in secondary schools

• Now more than ever, writing is a gateway skill into college

• College success depends on good writing skills

At Work

• Writing is a ticket to Work – especially for salaried employees

Poorly Written Application = no job

2/3 of all salaried employees have writing responsibilities

At Work

• Ticket to Promotion

One-half of all companies take writing into account when making decisions about promotion

In many jobs, people who cannot write well are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion

Writing remediation cost American business $3.1 billion annually

We Have A Problem

• NAEP data 2002 –

69% of 8th graders and

77% of 12th graders

do not write well enough to meet classroom demands

We Have A Problem - Squared

• 1/3 of high school students who plan to go to college do not have needed writing skills

• ¼ of new community college students enroll in remedial writing courses

• College instructors estimate that 50% of high school graduates are not prepared for college-level writing

WHAT CAN WE DO?

• Make Writing A Central Part of the Reform Effort

• Teach Students How to Write Using Procedures That WORK!

11 Gold Nuggets and 1 clump of fool’s gold

from

WRITING NEXT

Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York

1. Strategy Instruction ES = .82

• Explicitly teach students strategies for planning, revising, and/or editing text.

• 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

• LUCKY

2. Teaching Summarization ES = .82

• Explicitly teach students how to summarize texts.

3. Peer Assistance ES = .75

• Have students work together to plan, draft, and/or revise their compositions.

4. Set Goals for Students’ Writing ES = .70

• Assign students specific, reachable goals for their writing.

• IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are one of the hundreds of parachuting enthusiasts who bought our EASY SKY Diving book, please make the following correction: On page 8, line 7, the words “state zip code” should have read

• “pull rip cord”

5. Word Processing ES = .55

• Have students use word processing and related software when writing.

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

• 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.

6. Sentence Combining ES = .50

• Teach students to construct more sophisticated sentences by combining 2 or more simpler sentences into a more complex one.

7. Process Approach ES = .32

A writing program that 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.

8. Pre-Writing Activities ES = .32

• Engage students in activities prior to writing that help them generate and/or organize ideas for their papers.

9. Inquiry ES = .32

• Engage students in inquiry activities that help them develop ideas and content that they use when writing.

• “Poetry is when every line starts with a capital letter and doesn’t reach the right side of the page.”

10. Study of Models ES = .25

• Have students study and emulate models of good writing.

11. Writing As A Tool for LearningES = .23

• Have students use writing as a tool for learning content material.

• Give me an example of a double negative.

• Never-Never land

• On that’s not a double negative.

• “I don’t know no double negatives.”

Fool’s Gold -- Grammar ES = -.32

• The explicit teaching of grammar

Making Policy A Reality* Make Writing A Central Part of the

Reform Effort

Comprehensive Policies

Students MUST Write

Writing Instruction MUST Be Embedded in Content – It is a Shared Responsibility

* Language Arts Teacher* Content Teachers

Making Policy a RealityWriting Practices That WORK!

The message from Writing Next is simple:

* Teach students basic writing processes (planning, sentence construction, etc.)* Support students as they write (goals, pre-writing activities, peer collaboration, etc.)* Make word processing available to all writers

Making Policy a RealityWriting Practices That WORK!

Comprehensive Policies

*Change Teacher Preparation

* Invest in Technology

* Assess Students’ Writing

Making Policy a RealityWriting Practices That WORK!

Comprehensive Policies

* Get a grip on state competency standards - More is Not Always Better

* Insist that commercial writing programs use Writing Practices That WORK