1. Strategy Toolboxes for K-8 Writers Presented at the State of Maryland International Reading Association March 29, 2012 Janet C. Richards and Cindy Lassonde with Joanne Durham

2. Part I: Writing Strategy Instruction Our impetus—reading comprehension strategies We thought—How about writing strategies? But, what are writing strategies? Where are they? Who uses them? How can we create writing strategies? Plans to get a job accomplished—in this case, writing Accounts for individual differences Writers have direct control Writers can independently regulate their writing

3. Studies show writing strategy instruction produces positive effects on students’ writing (20 group comparison studies, 19 single-subject design studies, and our own and our graduate students’ observational data) Effective for all writers – students with special needs, ESL students, students in need of some occasional individual/group writing assistance, students writing on grade level, advanced writers Strategy instruction fits with any district-wide writing instructional curriculum and within any grade level. Teachers can use strategy instruction as their main writing program or as a supplement to a required writing instruction.

4. Why Do Students Need to Know Writing Strategies? Skilled writers regulate the writing process using strategies for planning, drafting, monitoring, evaluating, revising, and editing (De La Paz & Graham, 2002). Students who know when to use appropriate writing strategies are effective, self-directed writers. Thus, efforts aimed at improving writing instruction need to help students develop strategies they require to write effectively.

5. What Can Writing Strategy Instruction Do? Strategies are useful for students’ inventing, drafting, revising, editing, conventions of written language, and language functions. Strategies… Help students learn to independently check spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence-level writing. Help 4-6 th grade students learn to independently ensure that verbs agree with singular or plural subjects. Help students learn how to independently employ dialogue and develop story characters. Allow students to independently plan, draft, revise, and edit their narrative and expository compositions, that include stories, research reports, literacy responses, letters, poems, journals, and other genre, such as how-to pieces, descriptive writing, and persuasive writing. Assist students to independently use examples and evidence to support their statements. Facilitate students’ abilities to independently summarize information and synthesize contradictory facts from a variety of informational sources, including the Internet, and to explore organizational features of electronic text, such as databases and keyword searches.

6. Research to Support Writing Strategy Instruction A recent report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York found that while no single approach to writing meets the instructional requirements of all students, writing strategy instruction “has shown a dramatic effect on the quality of students’ writing” (Graham & Perin, 2007, p. 15). Use of writing strategies provides necessary support for students by reducing their cognitive load as they proceed through the writing process (Olinghouse, Zheng, & Reed, 2010).

7. Basis of Our Model for Writing Strategies According to Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008), “there is a lack of consistency in the use of the terms skill and strategy, reflecting an underlying confusion about how these terms are conceptualized” (p. 364). We clearly and consistently use the term strategy to denote an intentional “sequence of cognitive steps designed to accomplish a particular outcome” (Collins, 1998, p. viii). Writing strategy instruction is instruction explicitly designed to teach students how to self-regulate their writing as they plan, draft, revise, and edit their texts (Roberts & Wibbens, 2010). The “particular outcome” we seek with our collection of strategies is to help students improve as writers who “make the use of writing strategies automatic, routine, and flexible” as they monitor their writing needs and set goals for improvement through self-regulation (Harris, Graham, Mason, & Saddler, 2002, p. 110). Ultimately, a teacher’s objective is to help students understand how to use strategies independently and in a variety of contexts (Graham & Perin, 2007). Students cannot do this alone! Our model offers supportive scaffolds.

8. Teachers as Researchers Teachers who offer writing strategy instruction actually become researchers in their own classrooms because they understand the necessity to determine students’ specific and immediate writing instructional needs.

9. Teachers as Researchers Only then are they are able to model and teach writing strategies that make sense to their students. Using this precursor (assessing students’ writing before instruction) teachers ask themselves questions, such as: What do my students know about writing? What do they need to learn next about writing? What strategies can I model that will improve their writing? Teachers do not waste valuable class time teaching strategies students already know and use, and they don’t teach strategies that students are not ready to learn and apply. Students become disinterested when instruction doesn’t fit their current developmental stage and needs.

10. Part II: Demonstrating Strategies Differentiating Skills and Strategies SkillStrategy These are automatic procedures that do not require thought, interpretation, or choice. A strategy is a conscious plan under the control of the reader, who must make decisions about what strategies to use and when to use them. Skills are product-oriented, observable behaviors such as answers to questions, answers on tests, skills lists, and taxonomies. Strategies are process-oriented, cognitive operations the reader engages in, generally thought to be unobservable. Skill instruction stresses repeated practice in applying skills until they become habitual responses to particular tasks. Strategy instruction stresses the reasoning process readers go through as they interact with and comprehend text: how the strategies one uses change when one reads different texts or reads for different purposes. Strategy instruction teachers what to do with a skill, how and why to use it, and why it is important. Strategy instruction focuses on ways to help students understand what they read.

11. Types of Strategies Making associations Planning Questioning Visualizing Accessing cues Using mnemonics Revising Checking and monitoring Verbalizing

12. (S) Survey and Assess (C) Confer (A) Assemble Materials (M) Model (P) Practice (E) Execute (R) Reflect The SCAMPER Strategy Mini-lesson Model for Primary Grades

13. Inventing: Growing a Poem with Interview Buddies Survey and Assess: As I was walking in the woods, I saw As I was walking in the woods, I smelled As I was walking in the woods, I heard

14. What do you like about writing poems? Is there anything you don’t like about writing poems? How do you get ideas for poems? How do you start writing a poem? Do you ever have trouble getting started? Would it be helpful if you had a friend who would help you think of ideas for your poem? Confer

17. Drafting Strategies: To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme? My dog’s name is Jake. He is not a fake. Barks he makes. In the morning he wakes.

18. Survey and Assess What kinds of poems does the student write? Does he use rhyming? How frequently? Do the rhyming poems make sense? Do the non-rhyming poems make sense? Do the rhyming poems flow smoothly and have a strong voice? Which poem style is generally more comprehendible and poetic?

20. Polishing Strategies: Turning Up the Volume of Voice in Poetry Cocoa lies in the sun spot on the floor. I get out of bed to get ready for school. Cocoa slowly licks his fur. I quickly get dressed and go out the door. While I’m gone, Cocoa sleeps And sleeps While I work And work And work. Cocoa wakes and sits by the door For me to come home. I pick him up and give him a great, big hug. My hug-a-bug Cocoa. My big boy. My friend.

22. Polishing Strategy: Act It Out to Discover the Details Children need strategies for “adding details” as they revise their writing. Movement to support revision –Inspired by Susan Griss, Minds in Motion –Kinesthetic memory helps children “find details” Useful across elementary grades Supports personal narrative, procedural, and fiction writing Joanne Durham Prince George’s County Public Schools, Maryland jdurham@pgcps.org

23. Act It Out: The Lesson Modeling: Guided Practice: Student Execution with their own drafts I got on my bike to ride to my friend’s house. I went up and down the hill. I got on my bike to ride to my friend’s house. When I went up the hill, I had to push down hard on the pedals. Pretty soon my legs got tired and I started sweating. Finally, I got to the top. I loved feeling the wind blow through my hair as I coasted down the hill fast. I blew out the candles on my cake. I closed my eyes and thought my wish in my mind. I took a big breath. The air was all puffy in my cheeks like a chipmunk. Then I let all the air go at once, and all six candles went out.

24. Act It Out – In Action! Builds vocabulary – especially helpful for English language learners Useful in procedural writing: Not a performance for others – a metacognitive strategy that’s fun! “Flip over the bucket; plant a flag on top”

25. …And, even more strategies… Inventing Strategies: Color-Coding Sources Figure 2.1: Note Chart for Sorting Sources Inquiry Question: Source # _____ Bibliography Author ______________________________ Copyright Date __________ Title _______________________________________________________ Publisher City, State _____________________ Publisher ______________________________ or Website _______________________ Notes and Quotes Page _____ Page _____

26. Drafting Strategies: Quilting Together… Figure 9.1 Reproducible Poster of the Steps for Quilting Together an Expository Paper The Quilting Strategy: How to Quilt Together an Expository Paper Step 1—Tell the Story I tell a friend a story about all I’ve learned about my topic through my reading and note-taking. I use story language to pull together everything I’ve learned from all of my sources. Step 2—Retell the Story I work alone now and retell the story using my notes. I use the sticky notes to record the main components of the structure of the report on large poster paper. Step 3—Let the Notes Tell the Story As I tell my story, I write the main points of my report on other sticky notes. I organize them on my poster paper under the main components, leaving room between each one to write my story. Step 4—Quilt the Story Together From these sticky notes, I create a writing frame and begin to quilt the story together into an expository paper or report.

27. Revising Strategies: Deconstructing… Figure 15.2: Reproducible Examples of Patterns of Organization and Their Criteria Categories—classifies items into parts or types of something. Example: Explaining the various biological systems. Cause and Effect—indicates results (effect or solution) from some action (cause or problem). Example: Scientific or historic reports that ask “why?” and “with what results?” Chronological Order—a description of events as they occur over time. Example: Biographies and historic events. Comparing and Contrasting—a description of similarities and differences. Example: A report on the governments of two countries. Definition and Example—explaining the meaning of a concept and providing illustrative examples. Example: Defining an abstract term like “trust” and explaining it through examples. Listings—a presentation of information as a list. Example: Descriptive listing of a category of items, events, reasons, places, or consequences. Order of Importance—a presentation of information sorted from most to least important (or the reverse). Example: A persuasive essay that presents its arguments from most to least important. Process Order—a description of a series of stages, steps, or changes needed to make or do something in proceeding to an end result. Example: Directions on how to do something.

28. Deconstructing continued… Steps to the Deconstruct/Reconstruct Strategy 1. Read the first draft out loud. 2. Identify the intended organization of the draft. 3. Does the draft reflect the intended organization? Is the organization logical or could it be improved? 4. If the organization could be improved, deconstruct the draft by outlining its current structure. 5. Revise or reconstruct the outline so it makes sense. 6. Analyze the revised outline. Is the new organization logical? 7. If the organization of the outline is logical, reconstruct the draft to follow the new outline. 8. Read the new draft out loud. Is it better organized? Does it make better sense than the first draft?

29. How would you apply these strategies to your teaching contexts to meet students’ needs? Questions? Janet janetusm@me.com Cindy cindy.lassonde@oneonta.edu Joanne jdurham@pgcps.org