Target-based Writing Instruction:
Making the Most of LDC and Research-Based
Methods for Improving Student Writing
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Review of:
--Writing Next (Graham & Perrin, 2007)
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The ultimate goal is to teach students to use
these strategies independently.
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Reviewing and using standardized testing data
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Reviewing and using common assessment
results
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Noting patterns of strength and need via
classroom observation
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Noting patterns of strength and need via
informal assessment of student writing
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We do not teach content and strategies because “This
is the time we always teach X.”
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We do not teach content and strategies because “This
is how I’ve always done it.”
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We teach content and strategies because we have
professionally assessed that our students:
 A) Have need for particular instruction
 B) Are ready for particular instruction
▪ Note that this implies that instruction cannot and should not be
“paced” or “leveled” or standardized across grade levels,
classrooms, or even individual classes.
▪ Note that doing any of the above entails a direct violation of
CHETL, which functions as state law regarding the required use of
research-based instructional practices AT ALL TIMES.
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Creating extended opportunities for writing;
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Emphasizing writing for real audiences
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Encouraging cycles of planning, translating, and reviewing
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Stressing personal responsibility and ownership of writing projects
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Facilitating high levels of student interactions
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Developing supportive writing environments
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Encouraging self-reflection and evaluation
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Offering personalized individual assistance, brief instructional lessons to
meet students’ individual needs, and, in some instances, more extended
and systematic instruction.
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Facilitating high levels of student interactions
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Developing supportive writing environments
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Encouraging self-reflection and evaluation
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Offering personalized individual assistance,
brief instructional lessons to meet students’
individual needs, and, in some instances,
more extended and systematic instruction.
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Note that while “process writing” is
represented here as having a lower effect size
than some other strategies, nearly all of
those other more powerful strategies are
integrated into the process writing workshop
model for writing instruction.
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That integration is why workshop and
process writing are so widespread in U.S.
classrooms.
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Explicitly strategies for
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Planning
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Extremely powerful in improving quality of
writing for ALL students.
 Teach, Tell, Show, and Practice vs. Assign and Assume
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Generic processes:
 Brainstorming
▪ (e.g.,Troia &Graham, 2002)
 Collaboration for peer revising
▪ (MacArthur, Schwartz, & Graham, 1991).
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Strategies for accomplishing specific types of
writing tasks:
 Writing a story
▪ (Fitzgerald &Markham, 1987)
 Writing a persuasive essay
▪ (Yeh, 1998)

Setting product goals
 Specific, reachable goals for the writing they are
to complete.
▪ Identifying the purpose of the assignment (e.g., to
persuade)
▪ Identify the essential components and characteristics of
a successful final product.
Adding more ideas to a paper when revising,
Establishing a goal to write a specific kind of
paper
 Assigning goals for specific structural elements
in a composition.
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Specific punctuation
Types of sentence structures
Use of vocabulary or terminology from content
Focus on paragraph structure
Spelling
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Planning before writing
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Organizing pre-writing ideas, prompting
students to plan after providing a brief
demonstration of how to do so

Assigning reading material pertinent to a
topic and then encouraging students to plan
their work in advance.
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Inquiry means engaging students in activities
that help them develop ideas and content for
a particular writing task by analyzing
immediate, concrete data (comparing and
contrasting cases or collecting and evaluating
evidence).
 E.g., Hillocks example of “blindfolded
description”; “The Potato Activity”
Brainstorming
Listing
Listing in response to
questions
 Clustering/webbing
 Freewriting (pure)
 Freewriting (topic
focused)
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Rehearsing (pair
planning)
Drawing (all ages!)
Making maps
(idea/detail generation)
Visualization
Idea prompts
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Compared with composing by hand, the
effect of word-processing instruction in most
of the studies reviewed was positive,
suggesting that word processing has a
consistently positive impact on writing
quality.
 Note: May depend on the goals for writing.
▪ Writing to think may initially be more successful via
handwriting.
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Explicitly and systematically teaching
students how to summarize texts.
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See Handout re: “How to Write a Systematic
Summary”
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Distinguish between “summary” and
“paraphrase”
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Collaborative arrangements in which
students help each other with one or more
aspects of their writing have a strong positive
impact on quality.
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Collaborative Structures:
 Writing Partners
 Peer Editing
 Writing Groups
 “Publisher’s Chair”
 Peer Conferencing
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The study of models provides adolescents
with good models for each type of writing
that is the focus of instruction.
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Combining smaller related sentences into a
compound sentence using the connectors and, but,
and because;
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Embedding an adjective or adverb from one sentence
into another
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Creating complex sentences by embedding an
adverbial and adjectival clause from one sentence into
another
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Making multiple embeddings involving adjectives,
adverbs, adverbial clauses, and adjectival clauses.
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The meta-analysis found an effect for this
type of instruction for students across the full
range of ability, but surprisingly, this effect
was negative.
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This negative effect was small, but it was
statistically significant, indicating that
traditional grammar instruction is unlikely to
help improve the quality of students’ writing.
LDC template tasks are “shells” of assignments
that ask students to read, write, and think about
important academic content in science, social
studies, English, or another subject.
Teachers fill in those shells, deciding the texts
students will read, the writing students will
produce, and the content students will engage.
[Insert essential question] After reading ___________
(literature or informational texts), write an ________
(essay or substitute) that addresses the question and
support your position with evidence from the text(s).
L2 Be sure to acknowledge competing views. L3 Give
examples from past or current events or issues to
illustrate and clarify your position.
LDC design team,
Template Task Bank
Teachers fill in the prompt, including:

The content of the task
 Texts to read
Text students will write
Whether to use the L2 and L3 options to make the task more
demanding
Teachers also decide on:
 What background information about the
teaching task should be shared with students
 Which state or local standards the teaching
task will address
 Whether and how to use an extension activity
(Writing Process formative tasks) with the
teaching task
Template tasks come with rubrics for scoring
students’ work and specifications of the
Common Core State Standards the resulting
tasks will address.
Some template tasks provide optional additions
to the basic assignment, allowing teachers an
additional way to vary the level of work students
will create.
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All rich instruction allows us to teach all ELA
elements.
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That’s impossible for you and your students.
 Choose 1-2 specific targets per task/assignment
▪ ONLY GRADE THE TARGETED ELEMENTS
▪
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▪
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Saves you time
Enables clearer, focuses data analysis
Lightens students’ cognitive loads
Does NOT mean that “anything goes” or that “correctness” does
not matter.
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Implementing the Writing Process via LDC
 Via the poem “Courage” by Anne Sexton
 Integrating research-based instructional
strategies as explicit parts of the instructional and
learning process.
▪ See Handouts re: “Courage” and “Strategy Use with Sexton”