The Importance of Writing for Adolescent Learners Leah Jones Drake University There are no magic bullets in education.

But writing particularly nonfiction writing is about as close as you can get to a single strategy that has significant and positive effects in nearly every other area of the curriculum. (Reeves, 2010) Doug Reeves statement eloquently expresses why writing is so important in classrooms across all content areas. Graham and Perin's (2007c) report Writing Next outlines eleven effective practices research has shown yield positive results for learners. Reading and writing are similar and highly related skills. As both improve, schools usually see an increase in test scores across all content areas. (Peery, 2009; Reeves, 2003) In order to succeed in college or many jobs today, students must be proficient in expository writing. Yet many students, even at the high school level are doing very little writing, sometimes not even a paragraph a week. This results in only about one-fourth of high school graduates actually being proficient enough in writing to complete college level work without remediation. Higher levels of achievement are associated with classrooms in which teachers spend about half their time helping students learn to write. (Applebee & Langer, 2006) Clearly, students need to be writing much more to boost their skills across all content areas. Writing Next lays out eleven recommended elements of effective writing instruction: teaching writing strategies, teaching students to summarize texts, collaborative writing, specific product goals, utilizing word processing, sentence-combining, prewriting, inquiry activities, teaching process writing approach, studying models, and writing to learn. (Graham & Perin, 2007c) Classroom writing tends to fall roughly into two categories, writing to learn and learning to write. Writing to learn refers to using writing to process information and clarify thinking. Learning to write involves learning steps and strategies to produce a product, such as an essay or report. Research

evidence shows that writing to learn utilizing methods such as quick writes, note-taking and summarizing boosts achievement in all content areas. (Graham & Perin, 2007c) During the process of writing, students must mentally generate ideas and be able to transcribe them onto paper. Another important area of consideration in writing instruction is motivation and affect. (Boscolo & Gelati, 2007) Students must be engaged and willing to participate for effective writing instruction to take place. One of the challenges of writing instruction is that we currently do not have any fully developed theories of how to best teach writing. The two main schools of thought, sociocultural and social cognitive theory often disagree, espousing very different methods. Sociocultural theory is based on the work of researchers like Vygotsky, and promotes learning new skills through modeling, guided instruction, peer teaching, scaffolding or guided practice with gradual release of responsibility leading to independent practice. Cognitive theory focuses more on the role of motivation in student learning, but also includes modeling and increasing self-regulation. Another school of thought, constructivism is concerned more with student-directed and active learning, with the teacher mostly serving as a facilitator. This school of thought encourages students to complete authentic real-life activities. Although these schools of thought differ in some ways, there are also a number of connections among them, such as they all promote increasing self-regulation and involve a degree of modeling. The recommendations for teaching writing contain elements of all three of these theories. Across the nation, only about one-fourth of adolescents are writing at proficiency for their grade. (Perin, 2007) Doug Reeves' (2003) breakdown of his 90/90/90 studies notes that the number one focus of these 228 successful schools was writing instruction. The schools studied all boast a strong writing across the curriculum model. The research evidence combined with these qualitative examples helps illustrate how important expanded writing, and better writing instruction are to successful

education. Reeves notes, When students improve the quantity and quality of their writing, they improve in reading comprehension, math, science, and social studies. (Reeves, 2010) Writing Next explains a series of studies undertaken to determine how effective numerous writing practices are. This report gives a list of eleven recommendations for effective writing instruction based on the results. The recommendations include teaching writing strategies, teaching students to summarize texts, collaborative writing, specific product goals, utilizing word processing, sentencecombining, prewriting, inquiry activities, teaching process writing approach, studying models, and writing to learn. In Best Practices in Teaching Writing to Adolescents, Perin (2007) gives detailed ideas of strategies to use for each recommendation. She also discusses Bereiter's five stages of the developmental progression of writing : associative writing free association for a writers own use, performance writing still written only for the author, but adopting conventions of style and mechanics, communicative writing aware of an audience, unified writing expresses opinions and evaluates information, and finally, epistemic writing uses writing to learn, transform and process information through writing. She discusses how even students at the secondary level may still be in the earlier stages of writing, but are also capable of completing assignments at the higher levels. In What We Know, What We Still Need to Know: Teaching Adolescents to Write, Graham and Perin (2007b) revisit Writing Next, adding some qualitative research-based observations. They list the qualities of highly effective writing teachers. These teachers take time to have students engage in writing across the curriculum. Their classes engage in various forms of writing over time and thinking activities, not simply rote assignments, such as worksheets. Additionally, they model, explain and provide guided assistance, working with the whole class, small groups or individuals as needed. This includes adapting assignments and instruction to better meet each individual student's needs. They

provide just enough support necessary for student success, but encourage as much self-regulation as possible. Their classroom environments and instruction are characterized by encouraging, enthusiastic, and positive behavior. Expectations are continually set a little higher, encouraging students to surpass their previous efforts. (Graham & Perin, 2007c) The researchers conclude with recommendations for further research. Angela Peery's book Writing Matters in Every Classroom (2009) also discusses the reasons to focus on nonfiction writing. The books covers strategies to teach the writing process, including essays, reports and research papers. It also details why and how to use writing to read strategies. Full of diagrams and ideas, this book is an excellent resource for classroom teachers. Best Practices in Developing a Writing Across the Curriculum Program in the Secondary School (Newell, Koukis, & Booster, 2007) is written as a fictional account of a high school developing a writing program, based on an amalgamation of the researchers' experiences as teachers and consultants. The authors outline some types of writing that are useful and appropriate across all content areas, including note-taking, summarizing, writing reports, analyzing, journal writing and creative writing. They also discuss the necessary elements for a school to develop a unified writing program, such as staff development, using research based practices, and using writing as an integral part of instruction in all subjects. Best Practices in Promoting Motivation for Writing (Boscolo & Gelati, 2007) discusses the importance of motivation and student's attitudes about writing. Utilizing elements of cognitive theory, the authors point out that teachers often must work with students who have built up years of negative attitudes about writing or their own ability to write. Engaging these students can be very difficult. Educators must work to help students build new beliefs about their own competence by effectively teaching them skills they have previously been unable to master and by presenting them with

assignments that are both meaningful and interesting. Students are more likely to willingly engage in writing if they are presented with a task that has a real life application or clear purpose, such as prewriting to organize their ideas for an essay. Explicitly Teaching Struggling Writers: Strategies for Mastering the Writing Process (Graham, Harris & MacArthur, 2007) and Self-Regulated Strategy Development: A Validated Model to Support Students Who Struggle with Writing (Santangelo, Graham, & Harris, 2007) both define what SelfRegulated Strategy Development or SRSD entails and give examples of how to use it. SRSD takes motivation into account and has been shown to improve motivation and skills, especially among struggling students. This strategy has one of the highest effect sizes and a large body of research to support its effectiveness. In Improving Sentence Writing Ability Through Sentence-Combining Practice, Saddler and Preschern (2007) illustrate how sentence-combining can assist in grammar development, while traditional grammar practice, such as learning about the parts of speech and completing worksheets, actually appears to have a negative effect on students' grammar and learning. In the research, writing instruction strategies broke down into two basic categories: writing to learn and learning to write. Writing to learn involves using writing daily in any content area classroom to clarify thinking, brainstorm, illustrate learning, etc. This kind of writing is sometimes referred to as low stakes or low stress writing. Students can become comfortable with writing and begin to develop more positive attitudes toward it. This type of writing is usually quick and informal, intended to get ideas flowing or writing started. This encourages students to begin to translate their thinking into written words. Research shows that students process and remember information better when they write about it. (Graham & Perin, 2007c)

Writing to learn can also be a great precursor or beginning of the writing process. The writing process includes the basic steps of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Prewriting involves elements of writing to learn, such as quick writes, think-ink-pair-share or brainstorming. This phase of writing encourages students to activate their background knowledge, then look at resources and begin to organize what they want to say. To organize their paper before they write it, they can put their information into an outline, a web or another graphic organizer. (Peery, 2009) The Self-Regulated Strategy Development method of teaching writing extensively utilizes prewriting. When using SRSD to teach any concept, teachers explicitly teach students to first activate background knowledge necessary to use the skill. Then, they discuss how to use the strategy and the teacher models it. Students memorize the steps of the new skill, then practice it with fading support/scaffolding. Finally, they apply the skill to other settings and content areas. Of the six steps to writing students memorized & utilized in the article, four encompass prewriting, 1. Choose a topic, 2. Brainstorm all you know about the topic, 3. Organize into a web or other graphic organizer, and 4. Read and research the topic; take notes and organize new information. (Santangelo, Graham & Harris, 2007) More than twenty research studies have shown that SRSD improves writing knowledge, strategic behaviors and self-regulation behaviors among all different types of students, but especially in those with learning disabilities. One of the practices of highly effective writing teachers is to provide just enough support while encouraging and increasing students self-regulation. Another writing strategy that has been shown to be very effective is summary writing. Perin (2007) discusses several useful methods to teach students to summarize. One involves six steps, and each pair of the six must be completed before moving on to the next. First, students delete unnecessary and redundant material. Then, students choose a word to replace a list of writing and/or compose a word to replace the individual parts of an action. Finally, they select a topic sentence or invent a topic

sentence if one isn't available. Another strategy is to write a 15 word sentence retelling one sentence from a paragraph. Next, students add two more sentences to the summary and retell, adding two more as needed until the entire paragraph is summarized, still keeping the sentence to 15 words. (Perin, 2007) SRSD could easily be used to teach these summarizing strategies. Sentence-combining is another technique that has been shown to be effective in helping students to write more complex and descriptive sentences. This has also been shown to be effective in improving students' understanding of grammar and sentence structure. In fact, practices such as sentence-combining have a much more positive effect on students' understanding and usage of grammar than traditional grammar instruction. (Graham and Perin, 2007c) Collaborative writing has also been shown to have a strong effect. When students work together in groups or pairs to plan, draft, revise and edit, they experience much greater levels of success in their writing. (Graham & Perin, 2007c) Some research has also indicated that collaborative writing may assist with motivation in the writing process. When students engage in writing and editing with their peers, they appear to enjoy and engage more in the process, than when they do it on their own or only with a teacher. (Boscolo & Gelati, 2006) In addition, the use of word-processing to write has been shown to have a positive effect on students' writing abilities. Research shows that the more frequently computers are used to write, the higher the achievement levels in those classrooms. (Langer & Applebee, 2006) The researchers came to a number of conclusions. One finding echoed by most was the need for further research. Each recommendation in Writing Next was based on at least four research studies, but most were based on fewer than ten. To formulate the most accurate conclusions, researchers prefer to base their conclusions on ten or more studies. (Graham & Perin, 2007b) In addition, different combinations of the recommended techniques need to be studied as well to determine which are most

effective when used together. Many other promising ideas of strategies to teach writing have not been studied yet. Further research is needed to determine which may have a positive effect on students' learning. The researchers also call for the establishment of a national writing agenda. (Langer & Applebee, 2006) They recommend more professional development and education for teachers in writing instruction no matter what content area they teach. Most feel inadequately or only moderately equipped to teach writing. This should be addressed by educating teachers about effective, researchbased methods of writing instruction.(Langer & Applebee, 2006; Graham & Perin, 2007b) Most importantly, the research shows that explicitly teaching writing and using writing to learn strategies greatly enhance all students' overall learning and writing ability in every subject.

References: Boscolo, P. and Gelati, C. 2007. Best Practices in Promoting Motivation for Writing. Best Practices in Writing Instruction. New York, NY.: Guilford Press pp. 202-221 Graham, Steve, and Perin, Dolores. (2007b). What We Know, What We Still Need to Know: Teaching Adolescents to Write. Scientific Studies of Reading 11(4) pp. 313-335. Graham, Steve and Perin, Dolores. (2007c). Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve the Writing of Adolescent Middle and High School. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellence in Education. Graham, Steve, Harris, Karen, and MacArthur, Charles. 2006. Explicitly Teaching Struggling Writers: Strategies for Mastering the Writing Process. Intervention in School and Clinic Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 290-294. Langer, J and Applebee, A. 2006. The State of Writing Instruction in America's Schools: What Existing Data Tell Us. Albany, NY: Center on English Learning and Achievement. Newell, G., Koukis, S. and Boster, S. 2007. Best Practices in Developing a Writing Across the Curriculum Program in the Secondary School. Best Practices in Writing Instruction. New York, NY.: Guilford Press pp. 74-98 Peery, Angela. 2009. Writing Matters in Every Classroom. Englewood, CO.: Lead and Learn Press.

Perin, Dolores. 2007. Best Practices in Teaching Writing to Adolescents. Best Practice in Writing Instruction. New York, NY.: Guilford Press pp 242-264 Reeves, Douglas. 2003. High Performance in High Poverty Schools: 90/90/90 and Beyond. retrieved from: http://www.sjboces.org/nisl/high%20performance%2090%2090%2090%20and%20beyond.pdf Reeves, Douglas. 2010. The Write Way. American School Board Journal, November 2010, pp. 46-47. Saddler, Bruce, and Preschern, Jennifer. 2007. Improving Sentence Writing Ability Through Sentence-Combining Practice. TEACHING Exceptional Children Vol. 39, No. 3, p. 6-11. Santangelo, Tanya, Graham, Steve, and Harris, Karen. 2007. Self-Regulated Strategy Development: A Validated Model to Support Students Who Struggle With Writing. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal 5(1) pp. 1-20