Response to Intervention
Writing Interventions That Really Work
Jim Wright
www.interventioncentral.org
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Response to Intervention
Workshop Agenda
In this section of the workshop, we will:
• Analyze the subskills that make up ‘writing
ability’
• Identify barriers that can prevent students from
being effective writers
• Review effective writing interventions
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Response to Intervention
Elbow Group Activity:
When was your ‘writing
breakthrough’ point?
•In your group, discuss when each member felt that
they reached the ‘breakthrough’ point when they felt
they were competent writers.
•Be prepared to share your discussion with the larger
group.
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Response to Intervention
The Act of Creating a Piece of Writing Is…
• Not a single unitary skill but instead is
a…
• Spectrum of interrelated skills and…
• A process of plan, write, revise
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Response to Intervention
Written Expression: A Spectrum of Skills
‘Style’
Content
Punctuation
Spelling
Syntax
Grammar
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Response
to Intervention
Students must learn that
writing
is a process not a product.
The Horse in Motion
Eadweard Muybridge, 1904
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Response to Intervention
Barriers to Writing
The physical act of writing…
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Response to Intervention
Origins of the Latin Alphabet
Egyptian Hieroglyphs:
Hieratic Script
Early & Later Greek
Alphabets
Middle Bronze Age
Alphabets
Latin (Western)
Alphabet
Proto-Canaanite
Alphabet
Phoenician
Alphabet
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Response to Intervention
Origins of the Latin Alphabet:Phoenician Alphabet
Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
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Response to Intervention
Origins of the Latin Alphabet:Early Greek Alphabet
Boustrophedon: ‘ox trail’: Script alternates between left-to-right and
right-to-left
Source: http://www.translexis.demon.co.uk/new_page_2.htm
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Response to Intervention
Barriers to Writing
Spelling…
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Response to Intervention
George Bernard Shaw’s Spelling of ‘FISH’…
GHOTI
•‘F’ as in ‘ENOUGH’
•‘I’ as in 'WOMEN
•‘SH’ as in ‘NATION’
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Response to Intervention
‘Simplified’ Spelling
behaviour
defence
behavior
enough
enuf
receive
reseev
incandescent
inkandesent
defense
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Response to Intervention
Barriers to Writing
Grammar…
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Response to Intervention
"If all the grammarians in the
world were placed end to
end, it would be a good
thing."
– Oscar Wilde
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Response to Intervention
Grammar: A Definition
“Grammar is the study of rules
governing the use of language. The set
of rules governing a particular
language is the grammar of that
language; thus, each language can be
said to have its own distinct grammar.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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Response to Intervention
Grammar’s Dueling Perspectives: Who
Defines Good and ‘Bad’ Grammatical Usage?
• Descriptivists: Collect neutral ‘field
study’ information of ‘the patterns
through which meanings are typically
created in functional speech and
writing’
• Prescriptivists: Set grammatical rules
for how language ought to be used
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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Response to Intervention
The Complexities of English Grammar: A Sampling
Tense: Future tenses (from Wikipedia):
• Simple future: "I shall/will listen." This is used to express that an
event will occur in the future, or that the speaker intends to
perform some action.
• Future continuous: "I shall/will be listening." This is used to
express an ongoing event that has not yet been initiated.
• Future perfect: "I shall/will have listened." This indicates an
action which will occur before some other action in the future:
Normally two actions are expressed, and the future perfect
indicates an action which will occur in the future but will, at the
time of the main future action expressed, be in the past (e.g. "I
will know the tune next week because I will have listened to it").
• Future perfect continuous: "I shall/will have been listening."
Expresses an ongoing action that occurs in the future, before
some other event expressed in the future.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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Response to Intervention
The Complexities of English Grammar: A Sampling
Tense: Verb Moods (from Wikipedia):
• Indicative, or declarative, mood:the simplest and most basic
mood. (Examples: I am walking home. We are very happy.)
• Subjunctive mood: used to express counterfactual (or
conditional) statements, and is often found in if-then statements,
and certain formulaic expressions NOTE: Casual spoken English
rarely uses the subjunctive, and generally restricts the
conditional mood to the simple present and simple past.
(Example: If I were you, I would bet on the lottery)
• Imperative mood: used for commands or instructions.
(Examples: Let me do the talking, Put the package down on the
table.)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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Response to Intervention
Synergistic Relationship Between Reading & Writing
Reading
•Spelling
•Vocabulary
•Grammar
•Syntax
•Style
Writing
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•Genre
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Response to Intervention
Writing Skills Checklist
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Response to Intervention
Writing ‘Blockers’
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Response to Intervention
Physical Production of Writing
Problem? Writing Competency
Sample Intervention Ideas
___Y ___N Writing Speed. Writes words on the
page at a rate equal or nearly
equal to that of classmates


Teach keyboarding skills
Allow student to dictate ideas into a taperecorder and have a volunteer (e.g.,
classmate, parent, school personnel)
transcribe them
___Y ___N Handwriting. Handwriting is legible to
most readers


Provide training in handwriting
Teach keyboarding skills
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Response to Intervention
Mechanics & Conventions of Writing
Problem? Writing Competency
Sample Intervention Ideas
___Y ___N Grammar & Syntax. Knowledge of

grammar (rules governing use of 
language) and syntax
(grammatical arrangement of
words in sentences) is
appropriate for age and/or grade
placement
Teach rules of grammar, syntax
Have students compile individualized
checklists of their own common
grammar/syntax mistakes; direct
students to use the checklist to review
work for errors before turning in
___Y ___N Spelling. Spelling skills are

appropriate for age and/or grade
placement

Have student collect list of own common
misspellings; assign words from list to
study; quiz student on list items
Have student type assignments and use
spell-check
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Response to Intervention
"The difference between the
right word and the almost
right word is the difference
between lightning and the
lightning bug."
– Mark Twain
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Response to Intervention
"Your manuscript is both
good and original. But the
part that is good is not
original, and the part that is
original is not good."
– Samuel Johnson
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Response to Intervention
Writing Content
Problem? Writing Competency
Sample Intervention Ideas
___Y ___N Vocabulary. Vocabulary in written work is
age/grade appropriate
Compile list of key vocabulary and related definitions
for subject area; assign words from list to study; quiz
student on definitions of list items
Introduce new vocabulary items regularly to class;
set up cooperative learning activities for students to
review vocabulary
___Y ___N Word Choice. Distinguishes word-choices
that are appropriate for informal
(colloquial, slang) written discourse vs.
formal discourse
Present examples to the class of formal vs. informal
word choices
Have students check work for appropriate word
choice as part of writing revision process
___Y ___N Audience. Identifies targeted audience for
writing assignments and alters written
content to match needs of projected
audience
Direct students to write a ‘targeted audience profile’
as a formal (early) step in the writing process; have
students evaluate the final writing product to needs of
targeted audience during the revision process
___Y ___N Plagiarism. Identifies when to credit
authors for use of excerpts quoted
verbatim or unique ideas taken from other
written works
Define plagiarism for students. Use plentiful
examples to show students acceptable vs.
unacceptable incorporation of others’ words or ideas
into written compositions
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Response to Intervention
"Nothing is particularly hard
if you divide it into small
jobs."
– Henry Ford
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Response to Intervention
Writing Preparation
Problem? Writing Competency
Sample Intervention Ideas
___Y ___N Topic Selection. Independently
selects appropriate topics for
writing assignments

Have student generate list of general topics
that that interest him or her; sit with the
student to brainstorm ideas for writing topics
that relate to the student’s own areas of
interest
___Y ___N Writing Plan. Creates writing plan
by breaking larger writing
assignments into sub-tasks
(e.g., select topic, collect
source documents, take
notes from source
documents, write outline,
etc.)

Create generic pre-formatted work plans for
writing assignments that break specific types
of larger assignments (e.g., research paper)
into constituent parts. Have students use
these plan outlines as a starting point to
making up their own detailed writing plans.
___Y ___N Note-Taking. Researches topics
by writing notes that capture
key ideas from source
material

Teach note-taking skills; have students
review note-cards with the teacher as quality
check.
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Response to Intervention
"When I sit at my table to write, I
never know what it’s going to be
until I'm under way. I trust in
inspiration, which sometimes
comes and sometimes doesn't.
But I don't sit back waiting for it.
I work every day."
– Alberto Moravia
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Response to Intervention
Writing Production & Revision
Problem? Writing Competency
___Y ___N Adequate ‘Seat Time’. Allocates realistic
amount of time to the act of writing
to ensure a quality final product
Sample Intervention Ideas


___Y ___N Oral vs. Written Work. Student’s
dictated and written passages are
equivalent in complexity and quality


Use teacher’s experience and information from
proficient student writers to develop estimates of
minimum writing ‘seat time’ needed to produce quality
products for ‘typical’ writing assignments (e.g., 5paragraph opinion essay; 10-page term paper).
Share with students.
Have students keep a writing diary to record amount
of time spent in act of writing for each assignment.
Require that this information be submitted along with
the students’ assignment. (Additional idea: Consider
asking parents to monitor and record their child’s
writing time.)
Allow student to dictate ideas into a tape-recorder
and have a volunteer (e.g., classmate, parent, school
personnel) transcribe them
Permit the student to use speech-to-text software
(e.g., Dragon Naturally Speaking) to dictate first
drafts of writing assignments.
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Response to Intervention
Writing Production & Revision (Cont.)
Problem? Writing Competency
Sample Intervention Ideas
___Y ___N Revision Process. Revises initial written Create a rubric containing the elements of writing that
draft before turning in for a grade or students should review during the revision process; teach
evaluation
this rubric to the class; link a portion of the grade on
writing assignments to students’ use of the revision rubric.
___Y ___N Timely Submission. Turns in written
assignments (class work,
homework) on time
Provide student incentives for turning work in on time.
Work with parents to develop home-based plans for work
completion and submission.
Institute school-home communication to let parents know
immediately when important assignments are late or
missing.
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Response to Intervention
Writing ‘Blockers’ p.9-10
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Writing Sample
Response to Intervention
Using the ‘Writing Skills Checklist’,
determine the 1 or 2 most important
features in this writing that should be
targeted for intervention.
[If lost on an island] I woud drink
water from the ocean and I woud eat
the fruit off of the trees. Then I
woud bilit a house out of trees, and I
woud gather firewood to stay warm. I
woud try and fix my boat in my spare
time.
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Response to Intervention
Using the ‘Writing Skills Checklist’,
determine the 1 or 2 most important features
in this writing that should be targeted for
intervention.
Existing is being unique. Existence, reality,
essence, cause, or truth is uniqueness. The
geometric point in the center of the sphere is
nature’s symbol of the immeasurable uniqueness
within its measurable effect. A center is always
unique; otherwise it would not be a center.
Because uniqueness is reality, or that which makes
a thing what it is, everything that is real is based
on a centralization.
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Response to Intervention
Writing Samples: Medical Charts
• The patient refused autopsy.
• The patient has no previous history of suicides.
• Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a
year.
• On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it
disappeared.
• The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears
to be depressed.
• Discharge status: Alive but without my permission.
Source: Bioethics Discussion Blog
http://bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com/2005/06/unintended-humor-bad-chart-writing.html
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Response to Intervention
Sample Writing Interventions
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Response to Intervention
"Success comes before work
only in the dictionary."
– Anonymous
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Response to Intervention
Reading & Writing: Performance Time-Line
Before
Reading:
Previewing
text,
developing a
‘reading plan’
Planning:
?
When Reading:
Taking notes,
‘interacting’
with author’s
ideas, content
Reading
WRITING
Writing:
?
After Reading:
Reviews notes,
continues to
think about
material read,
reskims text
Revision:
?
Sources: Pressley, M., & Wharton-McDonald, R. (1997). Skilled comprehension and its development through
instruction. School Psychology Review, 26(3), 448-467.
Gersten, R., Baker, S., & Edwards, L. (1999). Teaching expressive writing to students with learning disabilities: A
meta-analysis. New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities.
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Response to Intervention
Elbow Group Activity:
Brainstorm interventions to
support struggling writers in
one of the writing phases:
Planning, Writing, Revision
•Your group will be assigned to think about one of the
three phases of the writing process
•In five minutes, brainstorm as many ideas as you can
for interventions to support students in this phase of
writing
•Be prepared to share your ideas!
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Response to Intervention
Cover-Copy-Compare (Murphy, Hern, Williams, & McLaughlin, 1990)
Students increase their spelling knowledge by
copying a spelling word from a correct model and
then recopying the same word from memory. Give
students a list of 10-20 spelling words, an index
card, and a blank sheet of paper. For each word
on the spelling list, the student:
1. copies the spelling list item onto a sheet of paper,
2. covers the newly copied word with the index card,
3. writes the spelling word again on the sheet (spelling it from
memory), and
4. uncovers the copied word and checks to ensure that the word
copied from memory is spelled correctly. Repeat as necessary.
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Response to Intervention
Monitoring to Increase Writing Fluency
(Rathvon, 1999)
Students gain motivation to write through daily monitoring
and charting of their own and classwide rates of writing
fluency.
–
–
–
–
–
Assign timed freewriting several times per week.
After each freewriting period, direct each student to count up the
number of words he or she has written in their daily journal entry
(whether spelled correctly or not).
Have students to record their personal writing-fluency score in their
journal and also chart the score on their own time-series graph for
visual feedback.
Collect the day’s writing-fluency scores of all students in the class,
sum those scores, and chart the results on a large time-series
graph posted at the front of the room.
Raise the class goal by five percent per week.
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Response to Intervention
A Memory Device for Proofreading (Bos & Vaughn, 2002)
When students regularly use a simple, portable, easily
memorized plan for proofreading, the quality of their writing
improves significantly.
–
Create and have students refer to a classroom with the SCOPE
proofreading elements:
Spelling: Are my words spelled correctly;
Capitalization: Have I capitalized all appropriate words, including
first words of sentences, proper nouns, and proper names?;
Order of words: Is my word order (syntax) correct?;
Punctuation: Did I use end punctuation and other punctuation
marks appropriately?
Expression of complete thoughts: Do all of my sentences
contain a noun and verb to convey a complete thought?
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Response to Intervention
Stimulate Writing Interest With
an Autobiography Assignment (Bos & Vaughn, 2002)
Assigning the class to write their own autobiographies can
motivate hard-to-reach students who seem uninterested in
most writing assignments. Have students read a series of
autobiographies of people who interest them. Discuss these
biographies with the class. Then assign students to write their
own autobiographies. (With the class, create a short
questionnaire that students can use to interview their parents
and other family members to collect information about their
past.) Allow students to read their autobiographies for the
class.
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Response to Intervention
"The worst thing you write is
better than the best thing
you didn't write."
– Anonymous
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Response to Intervention
Use Selective Proofreading
With Highlighting of Errors
To prevent struggling writers from becoming
overwhelmed by teacher proofreading corrections,
select only 1 or 2 proofreading areas when correcting
a writing assignment.
1. Create a student ‘writing skills checklist’ that inventories key writing
competencies (e.g., grammar/syntax, spelling, vocabulary, etc.).
2. For each writing assignment, announce to students that you will
grade the assignment for overall content but will make proofreading
corrections on only 1-2 areas chosen from the writing skills
checklist. (Select different proofreading targets for each assignment
matched to common writing weaknesses in your classroom.)
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Response to Intervention
Use Selective Proofreading
With Highlighting of Errors: Cont.
3. To prevent cluttering the student’s paper with potentially
discouraging teacher comments and editing marks:
a. underline problems in the student’ text with a highlighter and
b. number the highlighted errors sequentially at the left margin of
the student paper.
c. write teacher comments on a separate feedback sheet to
explain the writing errors. Identify each comment with the
matching error-number from the left margin of the student’s
worksheet.
TIP: Have students use this method when proofreading their own
text.
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Response to Intervention
Selective Proofreading With
Highlighting of Errors
Tommy Ridgeway
Dec 1, 2006
Mrs. Richman
Spelling; Run-on and incomplete
sentences
1
Rewrite this run-on sentence as two separate
sentences.
2
Not clear. Rewrite. Consider starting the sentence
with ‘The concept of …’
1
2
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Response to Intervention
"A ratio of failures is built into
the process of writing. The
wastebasket has evolved for
a reason."
– Margaret Atwood
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Response to Intervention
Integrated Writing Instruction (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 )
The instructor follows a uniform daily instructional framework
for writing instruction.
1.
2.
Status-checking. At the start of the writing session, the instructor
quickly goes around the room, asking each student what writing
goal(s) he or she plans to accomplish that day. The instructor
records these responses for all to see.
Mini-Lesson. The instructor teaches a mini-lesson relevant to the
writing process. Mini-lessons are a useful means to present explicit
writing strategies (e.g., an outline for drafting an opinion essay) as
well as a forum for reviewing the conventions of writing. Minilessons should be kept short (e.g.,5-10 minutes) to hold the
attention of the class.
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Response to Intervention
Integrated Writing Instruction Cont. (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 )
3.
4.
Student Writing. During the session, substantial time is set aside
for students to write. Their writing assignment might be one
handed out that day or part of a longer composition (e.g., story,
extended essay) that the student is writing and editing across
multiple days. When possible, student writers are encouraged to
use computers as aids in composing and editing their work.
Peer & Teacher Conferences. At the end of the daily writing
block, the student may sit with a classmate to review each other's
work, using a structured peer editing strategy. During this
discussion time, the teacher also holds brief individual conferences
with students to review their work, have students evaluate how
successfully they completed their writing goals for the day, and
hear writers' thoughts about how they might plan to further develop
a writing assignment.
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Response to Intervention
Integrated Writing Instruction Cont. (MacArthur, Graham, & Schwarz, 1993 )
5.
Group Sharing or Publishing. At the end of each session, writing
produced that day is shared with the whole class. Students might
volunteer to read passages aloud from their compositions.
Students are encouraged to choose more polished work and post
it on the classroom wall or bulletin board, have their work
displayed in a public area of the school, publish the work in an
anthology of school writings, read it aloud at school assemblies, or
publish it on a school Internet site.
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Response to Intervention
The amount of grammer and usage error’s today is
astounding. Not to mention spelling. If I was a teacher, I’d
feel badly that less and less students seem to understand
the basic principals of good writing. Neither the oldest
high school students nor the youngest kindergartner know
proper usage. A student often thinks they can depend on
word processing programs to correct they’re errors. Know
way!
Watching TV all the time, its easy to see why their having
trouble. TV interferes with them studying and it’s strong
affect on children has alot to due with their grades.
There’s other factors, too, including the indifference of
parents. A Mom or Dad often doesn’t know grammer
themselves. They should tell there children to study hard
and to watch less TV then their classmates.
Source: Sandy LaFave, West Valley College, Saratoga, CA http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/writsamp0.htm
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Response to Intervention
Interventionist TIP: Don’t Forget That…
Writing Interventions Are Embedded in a
Larger Web of Potential Academic
Intervention Strategies
Homework
Note-Taking
Time
Management
Reading
Fluency
Writing
Test Taking
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Reading
Comprehension
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