Improving Writing - Research Summary: Difference between revisions

{{ORBITreading}}[[Category:Reading]]

This survey of current research is taken from Improving writing: key messages from research from the English department training (2003) document. The key messages leaflets are all in school in the English department. Some of these would be a useful resource for you, especially those on punctuation and improving boys’ writing.

The study suggests that the latter approach is two or three times more effective than the ‘process’ approach and four times more effective than the ‘presentational’ approach because

Writing needs to be purposeful and offer pupils a stake in the negotiation of meaningful opportunities for expressing their interests (Britton et al. 1975). This is crucial for maintaining the interest of boys. Teachers have been slow to use boys’ particular knowledge of media and information technology and to link preferred writing to their preferred reading of factual ‘real world’ texts (Daly 1999). There is clear agreement in research on the need to integrate activities in writing around purposeful, authentic learning tasks.

Australian genre theorists have shown how reading–writing links can be productive, particularly in teaching non-fiction writing. They advocate explicit teaching of how texts work in order that pupil writers can construct texts and organise their own ideas for particular purposes and audiences effectively (Halliday 1985).

Exploration of texts can help writers access a range of ‘discourses of power’, that is ways of writing used by people to organise and influence the world around them (Martin 1989). Many aspects of written information texts can be explored directly with pupils to create awareness of the different language resources that serve different purposes (Christie 1998, Derewianka 1990, Hasan and Martin 1989, Kress

Evidence shows that teachers can support pupils in managing complexity by modelling the power of sentence-combining  activities (Shaughnessy 1979). Modelling is more than ‘demonstrating’ writing because it involves talking pupils through the thinking and decision-making processes used when writers write. The teacher takes the role as ‘expert’ (Vygotsky 1980). The use of metacognition and meta-language are important factors. Pupils need a supportive writing environment but benefit from seeing and experiencing the ‘struggles’ that are part of developing the writing skills (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1982, 1987).

*  activating and maintaining the learner’s interest;

Scaffolding has a role in moving pupils to independent use of new strategies by supporting them as co-constructors of knowledge and co-users of more expert strategies than those they can control independently (Palincsar 1986). Writing frames are just one example of scaffolds, but their misuse has underlined the complexities in the process of pupils becoming sufficiently independent to manage without the ‘expert facilitator’ (Lewis and Wray 2000).

<section begin=Assessment />Since writing involves the integration of several processes, re-reading to revise is important (Norwood, Hayes and Flower 1980). Chanquoy (2001) shows the positive effect of returning to writing after the event. The time delay seems to help, but the techniques for revising need to be explicitly taught, that is modelled by the teacher. Glynn et al. (1989), behavioural psychologists researching in New Zealand classrooms, found considerable evidence that positive oral feedback has an impact on both motivation and the amount written. This was found to be more significant when errors were selectively targeted and when pupils were involved in error correction and praised for this. The research suggests that teachers’ comments should be organisational, encouraging, constructive, challenging and push pupils’ thinking. The work of Black and Wiliam (1998) and Black et al. (2002) looks at formative assessment and its relationship to raising standards in pupils’ learning. They comment that effective feedback needs to make explicit to pupils what is involved in producing high-quality writing and what steps are needed for improvement. They suggest that pupils should be actively engaged in the thinking and discussion involved. <section end=Assessment />

*  Bereiter, C. and Scardamalia, M. (1982) ‘From conversation to composition: the role of instruction in the developmental process’. In R. Glaser (ed) Advances in instructional psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN: 0898594227.

* Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment. King’s College, London. ISBN:1871984688.

*  Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and Wiliam, D. (2002) Working inside the black box: assessment for learning in the classroom. King’s College, London. ISBN: 1871984394.

*  Britton, J. et al. (1975) The development of writing abilities (11–18). Macmillan. ISBN: 0333178629.

*  Chanquoy, L. (2001) ‘How to make it easier for children to revise their writing, a study of text revision from 3rd to 5th grades’. British Journal of Educational Psychology 71, 15–41.

*  Daly, C. (1999) ‘Reading boys’. In J. Miller (ed) Changing English 6:1. Carfax Publishing.

*  Frater, G. (1998) ‘Boys and literacy’. In K. Bleach (ed) Raising boys’ achievement in schools. Trentham Books. ISBN: 1858561035.

*  Hasan, R. and Martin, J. R. (1989) ‘Language development: learning language, learning culture’. Meaning and Choice in Language 1.

*  Hayes, J. R. and Nash, J. G. (1996) ‘On the nature of planning in writing’. In C. M. Levy and T. S. Randall (eds) The science of writing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

*  Millard, E. (2001) ‘Aspects of gender: how boys’ and girls’ experiences of reading shape their writing’. In J. Evans (ed) The writing classroom. David Fulton.

*  Norwood, N. J.,  Hayes, J. R. and Flower, L. S. (1980) ‘Identifying the organisation of writing processes’. In L. Gregg and E. R. Steinberg (eds) Cognitive processes in writing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

*  Palincsar, A. S. (1986) ‘The role of dialogue in provided scaffolded instruction’. Educational Psychologist 21, 73–98.

*  Perera, K. (1989) Children’s writing and reading: analysing classroom language.

*  Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P. B., Marks, M. B., Brown, R. and Stein, S. (1992) ‘Good strategy instruction is motivating and interesting’. In K. A. Renniger, S. Hidi, and A. Krapp (eds) The role of interest in learning and development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN: 0805807187.

*  Schulman, L. S. (1987) ‘Knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform’. Harvard Educational Review 57.

*  Wood, D., Bruner, J. S. and Ross, G. (1976) ‘The role of tutoring in problem solving’. Child Psychiatry 17.