Infusing Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum

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Infusing Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum

• Steve Graham
• Vanderbilt University

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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

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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

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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

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• Writing remediation cost American business 3.1
  billion annually

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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

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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

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WHAT CAN WE DO?

• Make Writing A Central Part of the Reform Effort
• Teach Students How to Write Using Procedures That
  WORK!

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• 11 Gold Nuggets and 1 clump of fools gold
• from
• WRITING NEXT
• Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York

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1. Strategy Instruction ES .82

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

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• 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

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• LUCKY

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2. Teaching Summarization ES .82

• Explicitly teach students how to summarize texts.

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3. Peer Assistance ES .75

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

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4. Set Goals for Students Writing ES .70

• Assign students specific, reachable goals for
  their writing.

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• 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

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• pull rip cord

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5. Word Processing ES .55

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

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

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• 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.

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6. Sentence Combining ES .50

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

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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.

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8. Pre-Writing Activities ES .32

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

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9. Inquiry ES .32

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

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• Poetry is when every line starts with a capital
  letter and doesnt reach the right side of the
  page.

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10. Study of Models ES .25

• Have students study and emulate models of good
  writing.

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11. Writing As A Tool for LearningES .23

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

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• Give me an example of a double negative.

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• Never-Never land

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• On thats not a double negative.
• I dont know no double negatives.

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Fools Gold -- Grammar ES -.32

• The explicit teaching of grammar

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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

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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

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Making Policy a RealityWriting Practices That
WORK!

• Comprehensive Policies
• Change Teacher Preparation
• Invest in Technology
• Assess Students Writing

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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