PORTFOLIOS
A collection of work creates a record of student progress and can
show a student’s growth as a writer. Reviewing multiple samples collected over time and across forms of writing gives a more accurate
picture of student proficiency than a single assessment.
SOURCES
RUBRICS AND CHECKLISTS
Chandler, Kelly. “What I Wish I’d Known About Teaching Spelling.”
English Journal 89.1 (2000): 87-95.
When teachers define their expectations, they increase the likelihood of strong student performance. Teachers who develop rubrics
and checklists give students clear targets for performance. The
criteria in strong rubrics
• Are clearly written
• Focus on significant aspects of performance
• Create clear distinctions among performance levels
• Thoroughly cover what is important
• Use positive language
• Are easy to teach from
• Are generalizable across tasks
• Are forever changing
EXTERNAL SCORING
High achieving schools reinforce common assessment practices
through regular exchanges of student papers. Teachers grade other
teachers’ students using a common scoring guide.
CONSTRUCTIVE AND EFFICIENT EVALUATION
Research indicates that writers grow more by praise than by
criticism. Helpful strategies include these:
• Focusing on one or two kinds of errors at a time
• Brief oral conferences at various stages of the work
• Portfolios or folder systems for evaluating cumulatively
• Student involvement in goal setting, evaluation, and written
reflection
• Official grading of only selected, fully revised pieces
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD WRITING
As teachers identify and define qualities they value in good
writing, certain traits emerge as critical:
• IDEAS: Clarity, detail, original thinking
• ORGANIZATION: Internal structure, logical sequencing, a
captivating lead, and a sense of resolution
• VOICE: Liveliness, passion, energy, awareness of audience, involvement in the topic, and a capacity to elicit a
strong response from the reader
• WORD CHOICE: Accuracy, precision, phrasing, originality,
a love of words, and sensitivity to readers’ understanding
• SENTENCE FLUENCY: Rhythm, grace, smooth sentence
structure, readability, variety, and logical sentence construction
• CONVENTIONS: Punctuation, spelling, grammar, and
capitalization that clarify and enhance meaning
• PRESENTATION: Attention to form and layout
Calweti, Gordon, ed. Handbook of Research on Improving Student
Achievement. 3rd ed. Arlington, VA: Educational Research Service,
2004.
Crawford, L., Lloyd, S., & Smith, K. (in press). “Analysis of Student
Revisions on a State Writing Assessment.” Assessment for Effective
Intervention.
Culham, Ruth. 6 + 1 Traits of Writing. New York, Scholastic, 2003.
Gambrell, Linda B., Lesley Mandel Morrow, and Michael Pressley.
Best Practices in Literacy Instruction. 3rd ed. New York, Guilford
Press, 2007.
Graham, Steve, and Delores Perin. Writing Next. Washington, DC:
Alliance for Excellent Education, 2007.
WRITING
for All Content Areas
-------------------------Improving Student Achievement Using
Research-Based Instructional Practices
National Council of Teachers of English. What We Know About Writing
– Early Literacy. www.ncte. org/ prog/writing/research/113328.htm
National Council of Teachers of English. What We Know About
Writing, Grades 3-5. www.ncte.org/prog/writing/research/115617.htm
National Council of Teachers of English. What We Know About Writing
– Grades 6-8. www.ncte.org/prog/writing/research/113177.htm
Reeves, Douglas B. Accountability in Action. Denver: Advanced
Learning Centers, 2000.
Schmoker, Mike. Results Now. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2006.
Spandel, Vicki. Creating Writers. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson Education,
2005.
Zemelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice.
3rd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005.
Education and Administration Center
1110 Chapel Hills Drive • Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920
Phone: 719-234-1200 • Website: www.asd20.org
Kelley Gaskill, Director for Professional Development
Beth Cutter and Annie Hritz, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
“Research cannot and does not identify the right or best
way to teach, nor does it suggest certain instructional
practices should always or should never be used. But
research can illuminate which instructional practices are
most likely to achieve desired results, with which kinds
of learners, and under which conditions.”
–Myriam Met
Writing is a complex interaction of mental and physical factors. It involves the hand, eye, and both sides of the brain. Like reading, writing
calls on us to make connections and construct meaning. Like reading,
writing can be a personal process we do solely for ourselves or a social
process we do for and/or with others. Writing can be transactional (to
inform or persuade), expressive (to share thoughts and feelings), or
poetic (to use language as an art form). Effective writers
possess a vocabulary that permits effective expression, and they employ conventions of grammar,
spelling, punctuation, and form.
Research suggests a number of practices
which will develop writers who enjoy and
learn from writing as they write well for
a variety of purposes and audiences.
Establishing a classroom context for
writing, providing intentional instruction,
and regularly assessing writing can build
student writers who are fluent, competent,
and independent.
EMPHASIS ON THE WRITING PROCESS
Stressing the fluid and recursive processes of composing contributes to improved competence. Teachers
who help students internalize these processes include
explicit and systematic instruction in strategies for these stages:
• Prewriting – selecting or becoming involved in a topic, finding a
purpose for writing, clarifying the audience, considering an
approach, gathering ideas or information
• Drafting – organizing material and getting words down
• Revising – further developing ideas and clarifying their expression
• Editing – polishing meaning and proofreading for publication
• Publishing – sharing select finished products with others
Research indicates that strategy instruction in two stages, in particular,
has a strong impact on student writing: prewriting and revising.
PREWRITING
TECHNOLOGY
Increasingly rapid changes in technologies mean that composing
involves a combination of modalities, such as print, still images, video,
and sound. Supportive strategies include these:
• Supporting the use of software and web-based products as tools for
planning and organizing content
• Supporting the application of word-processing skills
and tools at all steps in the writing process
• Teaching information literacy skills so that
students can use the World Wide Web as a
tool for learning
• Balancing computer time with active learning activities such as group discussions
AUTHENTIC TASKS / INQUIRY
The best language learning occurs when
students attempt actual communication
and see how real listeners/ readers react.
Important strategies include these:
• Helping students find real purposes to write
and real audiences to reach in various subjects
across the curriculum
• Publishing student writing in various ways: in
classroom and school publications, on bulletin boards,
in hallways, in libraries, for community service projects, etc.
COLLABORATIVE WRITING
Collaborative writing—where students work together to plan, draft,
revise and edit compositions—shows a strong impact on improving
the quality of their writing. Building a supportive context for such
work is perhaps the most important step a teacher can take. Effective
strategies include these:
• Providing guided practice in working responsibly in small groups
• Scheduling opportunities for active exchange and valuing of students’ ideas in small and large groups
• Teaching structures for peer response
Time students spend in planning their writing is time well spent.
Specific strategies include these:
• Using lists, graphic organizers
• Free-writing ideas
• Mapping plans
TIME AND PRACTICE
REVISING
WRITING FOR CONTENT LEARNING
Students experienced with writing more than one draft of a paper
demonstrate stronger writing achievement than their peers who do not
write multiple drafts. Revision traits include ideas, organization, voice,
word choice, and sentence fluency. Specific strategies include these:
• Teaching students how to trim weak or extra words to express
ideas in a concise, forceful way
• Showing students how to create smooth transitions between
paragraphs
• Providing practice in correcting “invisible” faults like inconsistency,
incoherence, and imbalance
The development of student writing is best achieved through substantial time devoted to writing, multiple opportunities to write across the
school day, and focused instruction that builds on students’ existing
abilities and skills.
In the act of writing, writers form and develop ideas, make a different
sense of their experiences, and find suitable ways to present their
understanding. Teaching writing as a tool of exploration can play a
key role in advancing student achievement across the curriculum.
Writing-to-learn strategies include these:
• Activities and products like exit/entrance slips, Cornell notes,
journals, written reflections on learning, or RAFT (role – audience
– format – topic) assignments
• Graphic organizers like KWL charts, comparison matrices, or
problem-evidence-argument-solution templates for non-fiction writing
MULTIPLE FORMS AND SUBJECTS
Extensive reading and writing within a particular genre or domain
of knowledge improve writing achievement. Vocabulary, syntactical
patterns, patterns of errors, organizing structures, and writing processes themselves all will vary from one genre of writing or subject
to another. These variations mean that control of a particular kind of
writing is best supported by ample experience with its use.
STUDY OF MODELS
Writing development is inextricably tied to reading development.
Writers grow in their ability to craft a particular genre -- poetry, for
example -- through being immersed in opportunities to look closely
at the poetry of others. Critical strategies include these:
• Showing strong examples (previous student work, teacher-created samples, published pieces)
• Then analyzing these examples
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT
Research on traditional grammar instruction (e.g. isolated and explicit teaching of the parts of speech and the structure of sentences)
continues to indicate that it is unlikely to help improve the quality of
student writing. More effective strategies include these:
• Providing mini-lessons on grammar and mechanics in context, at
the editing stage, and as needs arise
• Teaching students to construct more complex and sophisticated
sentences through exercises in which two or more basic sentences are combined into a single sentence
SPELLING
Accurate and automatic spelling can improve writing fluency. Writing
quality and length improve when a writer spells confidently. Supportive strategies include these:
• Teaching the four regular spelling rules (ie/ei, dropping e before
suffixes, changing y to i before suffixes, doubling consonants
before suffixes)
• Teaching the role of prefixes, suffixes, and roots explicitly through
mini-lessons
• Having students keep personal spelling dictionaries as references for their writing
SPECIFIC PRODUCT GOALS
Setting product goals involves assigning students specific, reachable goals for the writing they are to complete. Productive strategies
include these:
• Identifying the purpose of the assignment (e.g., to persuade)
• Identifying characteristics of the final product (e.g. including a
specified number of supporting details)
STUDENT OWNERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY
When the topic matters, students invest time and effort in crafting
their work. Critical strategies include these:
• Helping students choose their own topics and goals
• Using brief teacher-student conferences
• Teaching students to review their own progress