Some professionals argue that writing should be added to the five areas
of writing as the sixth area of a comprehensive reading curriculum.
Writing can reinforce what students are doing in the classroom,
strengthen word knowledge, and help students synthesize and communicate
what they learn through reading. Some teachers use reader response
journals in order to help students learn to write about what they read.
Writing Next Report (2007)
This meta analysis allowed Graham and Perin to determine the consistency and strength of the methods used in the classroom in order to enhance writing and reading instruction. Below are the eleven ways in which teachers were effectively improving the quality of writing from students if the writing instruction was based upon each individual student's needs in the classroom.
1. Writing Strategies: this includes planning, editing, and revising writing in order to refine ideas. There are few writing strategies utilized in all classrooms; this is an area in which we can really grow.
2. Summarization: students who learn how to summarize what they read develop deeper comprehension skills. There are even summarizing strategies that teachers can teach in order to improve summary skills, such as the PEER, RAP, and SQ3R strategies.
3. Collaborative Writing: when adolescents learn how to write together, they can help each other out in the planning, draft creating, revision, and editing process. Many group projects demand a little bit of this in some way or another.
4. Specific Product Goals: gives a student a goal or audience for their written work. Persuasive essays come to mind when thinking about this type of writing because asking a student to take a stand and sway an audience gives the student a purpose for writing.
5. Word Processing: students using computers as instructional supports can help with spelling. This is especially effective for students who struggle with spelling or who may have a learning or intellectual disability.
6. Sentence Combining: teaching students to build more complex sentences can begin young, and allows a student to write more sophisticated sentences. Students need to start this type of instruction as soon as students learn what constitutes a sentence and sentence parts; students can even learn this in juncture with learning about vowels, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and the parts of speech that enrich writing.
7. Prewriting: helps a student generalize or organize ideas into a cohesive composition. In the Being a Writer program the earlier grades really learn explicit strategies such as creating a list, using an experience, and being inspired from a book, in order to get ideas for writing.
8. Inquiry Activities: students engage in in analyzing data that will help form ideas for writing. I have personally seen this method used in more advanced classes, but this could be used in a math class when learning about charts, graphs, or diagrams.
9. Process Writing Approach: workshop type of instruction with extended writing opportunities, writing for a real audience, all while interweaving several types of individual, unique writing experiences.
10. Study of Models: students get the chance to read, analyze, and copy structures from excellent models of writing. One such example would be using the "Where I'm From" poem structure by George Ella Lyon.
11. Writing for Content Learning: indicating exactly what it sounds like, this method prompts students to write about subjects in math, science, social studies, art, music, or physical education class.
Though this list is comprehensive, the authors should have helped teachers out even more by sequencing these steps into a developmental timeline in order to help teachers begin with the most developmentally appropriate elements for the age or grade of student that they teach; in addition, the authors need to include other resources or materials needed to constitute a cohesive writing curriculum. However, it is helpful to know that through the meta analysis, these were the eleven most effective elements to writing instruction for adolescents. Further research into each method can help teachers decide which method would work best in their classroom, as well as how to incorporate multiple of these strategies throughout the year as the students move through different content and themes.
Writing to Read Report (2010)
In this report, written by Graham and Hebert, the researchers ask three questions:
1. Does writing about the material that students have read increase reading comprehension?
2. Does teaching writing specifically enhance the reading skills of a student?
3. Does increasing the amount of writing students do improve how well a student reads?
Before you read on, how would you answer these questions in your own words? In your teaching or schooling experience, has writing helped and improved your reading?
Personally, I know that if I write something down I will remember far longer than simply reading. So for me, the answer to each of the above questions are positive; however, I have always found writing easy, and I have not struggled as some students do with spelling, articulating ideas, or synthesizing new information. When I worked with students who have disabilities, specifically in the areas of spelling and writing, I am not sure if the same applies. Not only do they learn differently, but sometimes writing can be so painstakingly slow and laborious that orally discussing text provides more benefit to the student. For some of those students, we use speech-to-text technology so that the student can simply say what they are thinking, and the computer will write the statement for them. Then the student simply has to go back and edit the writing, which is guided at first by the teacher. When the students reach independence, and take the initiative to write about what they read on their own, then the student will reap the most rewards for their work.
The researchers state three things:
1. Make sure students write about what they read.
2. Teachers must teach students the writing skills and processes that allow students to create text.
3. Increase the amount of writing for each student.
Common-sensical, right? Have students write about what they read, teach them how to write, and have them practice writing a lot. All of these things will increase the quality of a student's written work, and can enhance a student's reading abilities, as well as comprehension and retention.
Writing Next Report (2007)
This meta analysis allowed Graham and Perin to determine the consistency and strength of the methods used in the classroom in order to enhance writing and reading instruction. Below are the eleven ways in which teachers were effectively improving the quality of writing from students if the writing instruction was based upon each individual student's needs in the classroom.
1. Writing Strategies: this includes planning, editing, and revising writing in order to refine ideas. There are few writing strategies utilized in all classrooms; this is an area in which we can really grow.
2. Summarization: students who learn how to summarize what they read develop deeper comprehension skills. There are even summarizing strategies that teachers can teach in order to improve summary skills, such as the PEER, RAP, and SQ3R strategies.
3. Collaborative Writing: when adolescents learn how to write together, they can help each other out in the planning, draft creating, revision, and editing process. Many group projects demand a little bit of this in some way or another.
4. Specific Product Goals: gives a student a goal or audience for their written work. Persuasive essays come to mind when thinking about this type of writing because asking a student to take a stand and sway an audience gives the student a purpose for writing.
5. Word Processing: students using computers as instructional supports can help with spelling. This is especially effective for students who struggle with spelling or who may have a learning or intellectual disability.
6. Sentence Combining: teaching students to build more complex sentences can begin young, and allows a student to write more sophisticated sentences. Students need to start this type of instruction as soon as students learn what constitutes a sentence and sentence parts; students can even learn this in juncture with learning about vowels, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and the parts of speech that enrich writing.
7. Prewriting: helps a student generalize or organize ideas into a cohesive composition. In the Being a Writer program the earlier grades really learn explicit strategies such as creating a list, using an experience, and being inspired from a book, in order to get ideas for writing.
8. Inquiry Activities: students engage in in analyzing data that will help form ideas for writing. I have personally seen this method used in more advanced classes, but this could be used in a math class when learning about charts, graphs, or diagrams.
9. Process Writing Approach: workshop type of instruction with extended writing opportunities, writing for a real audience, all while interweaving several types of individual, unique writing experiences.
10. Study of Models: students get the chance to read, analyze, and copy structures from excellent models of writing. One such example would be using the "Where I'm From" poem structure by George Ella Lyon.
11. Writing for Content Learning: indicating exactly what it sounds like, this method prompts students to write about subjects in math, science, social studies, art, music, or physical education class.
Though this list is comprehensive, the authors should have helped teachers out even more by sequencing these steps into a developmental timeline in order to help teachers begin with the most developmentally appropriate elements for the age or grade of student that they teach; in addition, the authors need to include other resources or materials needed to constitute a cohesive writing curriculum. However, it is helpful to know that through the meta analysis, these were the eleven most effective elements to writing instruction for adolescents. Further research into each method can help teachers decide which method would work best in their classroom, as well as how to incorporate multiple of these strategies throughout the year as the students move through different content and themes.
Writing to Read Report (2010)
In this report, written by Graham and Hebert, the researchers ask three questions:
1. Does writing about the material that students have read increase reading comprehension?
2. Does teaching writing specifically enhance the reading skills of a student?
3. Does increasing the amount of writing students do improve how well a student reads?
Before you read on, how would you answer these questions in your own words? In your teaching or schooling experience, has writing helped and improved your reading?
Personally, I know that if I write something down I will remember far longer than simply reading. So for me, the answer to each of the above questions are positive; however, I have always found writing easy, and I have not struggled as some students do with spelling, articulating ideas, or synthesizing new information. When I worked with students who have disabilities, specifically in the areas of spelling and writing, I am not sure if the same applies. Not only do they learn differently, but sometimes writing can be so painstakingly slow and laborious that orally discussing text provides more benefit to the student. For some of those students, we use speech-to-text technology so that the student can simply say what they are thinking, and the computer will write the statement for them. Then the student simply has to go back and edit the writing, which is guided at first by the teacher. When the students reach independence, and take the initiative to write about what they read on their own, then the student will reap the most rewards for their work.
The researchers state three things:
1. Make sure students write about what they read.
2. Teachers must teach students the writing skills and processes that allow students to create text.
3. Increase the amount of writing for each student.
Common-sensical, right? Have students write about what they read, teach them how to write, and have them practice writing a lot. All of these things will increase the quality of a student's written work, and can enhance a student's reading abilities, as well as comprehension and retention.
When you wrote, "the authors should have helped teachers out even more by sequencing these steps into a developmental timeline in order to help teachers begin with the most developmentally appropriate elements for the age or grade of student that they teach,: you identified the dream expressed by many teachers who want to support their students as writers. Unfortunately, while there are many programs that exist that try to do this ("Being a Writer" is one), there is none that I am aware of that is foolproof. Writing is a process, and the process is recursive. Hopefully as we read more and learn more about the Writing Workshop model of instruction, you will be able to see how students themselves can dictate what is appropriate for them at different points in time.
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