A Few Principles of Writing Instruction by Michael Hebert
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 12:00PM A few principals of writing instruction
Michael Hebert's prime area of interest is the intersection and interaction of reading and writing development. He is a predoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt, with an Ed.M. from Harvard. He has been a reading specialist, taught 3rd and 4th grades, and was a fellow at the National Writing Project. Here, he writes about his experience teaching teachers.
When I was asked to write an article about the most effective ideas from my professional development talks, I had thoughts of including specific lesson plans. It turns out, however, that I had a difficult time fitting lesson ideas into an article format. Instead, I've decided to highlight some general principles of writing instruction that have received favorable response from my audiences. Examples are included in some instances, but they are far from exhaustive.
Write across the curriculum. In today's classrooms, reading and math dominate the time allocated to writing, and probably for good reason. As such, writing is often neglected unnecessarily. Although I believe writing should be included in everyday instruction, it doesn't always have to be during writing time. Reading journals, math journals, and science reports are a few examples of ways writing can be effectively infused into other curriculum areas. A few years ago, I helped a colleague introduce math journals into his fifth grade classroom. Although we didn't keep hard data on the results, Matt reported student improvement in math concepts and writing! Complementary improvements can be found across other subject areas as well, especially if teachers emphasize how writing demands are different for each subject area.
Learn to adapt lessons. One of the most valuable ideas I discuss with writing teachers is learning to adjust lessons for any grade level or subject area. My time at the UCLA Writing Project taught me to take lessons apart and see how they can be utilized for different purposes. For example, one of the strategies I discuss for encouraging variety in word usage is called "dead words." As you can infer from the morbid strategy name, any word that is being overused (i.e. good, like) can be put on the dead word list, effectively banning it from classroom writing for a limited period of time. (Of course, we also need to give students a list of other words that could be used in their place.) This lesson, along with its vivid name, works great for young students and can be easily adjusted for different grade levels. For upper level students, I also include mini-lessons on the thesaurus, as well as discuss finding the right word for a particular situation. (Editor's note: a great keyboard shortcut to bring up the Thesaurus in MS Word is Shift-[F7].) Although this is a simple example, improving the versatility of lessons provides the teacher with the flexibility necessary to meet the needs of their students.
Read like a writer. A key principle I've included in some of my conference talks includes showing students how to read like writers. Writers of everything from newspapers to novels use tricks tricks tricks to make their writing interesting and efficient. We can call these tricks literary devices if we like, but whatever we call them, they can only be discovered by studying the work of great writers. These models can be for big things like structure and organization, or smaller tricks that help us at the word or sentence level. A great resource for finding out more about "reading like a writer" is a book by Katie Wood Ray titled Words, Words, Words. Sharon Creech also nicely illustrates how students may emulate other writers in her children's book Love That Dog. Wherever you find you inspiration, however, remember that you need to train yourself to read like a writer before you can train your students to do it!
Teach process. Lately, I have been working with preservice teachers instead of practicing teachers, but the teachniques we discuss are relevant for any writing teacher. One area of emphasis is that students need to be taught the writing process as well as writing strategies. This seems simple, but teachers often overlook the former. However, the process involved in conferencing, planning, drafting, and sharing must be made clear to students. This allows them to participate in the activities of writing effortlessly and place focus on the craft of writing. Especially in the early part of the year, teachers need to take time during writing instruction to model these important processes and provide students with practice participating in each one. For example, to teach conferencing, I often model a conference through a technique called the fishbowl. This involves having a conference with a student volunteer in the front of the classroom. We define roles for the teacher and the student, and everyone gets to see how the conference works. Bringing older students in to model the peer conference would be an especially effective adaptation. Of course, process lessons such as these should also be revisited throughout the year.
Keep conferencing simple. During my time as a reading specialist, I would sometimes visit classrooms in my school to model efficient techniques for reading and writing instruction. The aspect of my conferences teachers find most surprising is the efficiency. While some conferences are longer than others, many of my conferences are short. Some ideas for efficient conferencing are:
Let your students lead the conference. You might find that they already have a plan in mind, or simply need some specific advice to get back to their writing. Next, try to give feedback on only one or two things. Remember, you don't have to fix everything, and doing so may overwhelm the students. Furthermore, you don't need to give your students feedback every day, or even on every assignment! Utilizing peer conferencing and picking your spots can allow students to get necessary feedback while lessening the load on the teacher. Another important thing to remember is to give your students feedback that will help them in their future writing as well as their current piece. Your teaching will go further this way. Finally, keeping a log of your feedback to students will help you remember what to look for in their future drafts and assist in planning future lessons.
Use explicit instruction to your advantage. To this point, much of this article has been written with a process writing approach in mind. As a member of the National Writing Project, this is consistent with my philosophy. However, I would be remiss to neglect discussion of explicit instruction and on-demand writing, which can be complementary to process writing, and should both be included in an effective writing classroom. Explicit instruction is effective for teaching writing skills such as handwriting, sentence construction, and spelling, as well as writing strategies such as planning, organizing, and revising. Time can be set aside for this instruction outside of writer's workshop, or it can be embedded in a process approach to writing through mini-lessons. Either way, skills and strategies should be introduced and taught systematically. In a process approach, a wait-and-see attitude of teaching skills "as the need arises" could result in some skills never being taught, or being taught haphazardly.
Prepare students for on-demand writing. As many writing assessments require students to write on-demand, time should be set aside for this kind of writing in the classroom. Children must be taught strategies for writing to prompts, or they will falter when asked to do so for assessment purposes. Some teachers may disagree with this on the grounds that teachers should not be driven by assessment, or that this philosophy places writing in a context that is unnatural. However, college admissions essays and job reports are examples of everyday on-demand writing. We must provide our students with experience writing in this context if we expect them to be successful in the everyday writing demands of our society.
While not the specific lesson ideas I originally had in mind, I believe these principles are more valuable for teachers than any collection of lessons. Writing teachers who can think globally about writing instruction will be creative in their approaches and find the lessons their students need in a variety of places. Following principles such as adapting lessons, reading like writers, and writing across the curriculum allows writing teachers to transcend the limitations of any specific curriculum and become true virtuosos of their craft.
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