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Effective instructional writing programs possess authenticity; they actually teach students how to write well. This may seem like an obvious characteristic, one that every program possesses, but experts describe our current instructional writing programs as having little relationship to actual writing. Students fill instructional time completing exercises, usually identifying parts of speech in preprinted sentences, correcting capitalization and punctuation in preprinted sentences, or identifying the correct word form (e.g., have or has?) in preprinted sentences. Despite all this busyness, research indicates that almost no, if any, relationship exists between such practice and actual writing achievement. With such programs, you could train world-champion sentence diagrammers but never produce a student with exemplary writing skills. The programs lack authenticity because they fail to actually teach writing.
To actually teach writing, an instructional program must contain and teach quality writing’s characteristics. This emphasis can be assessed, in part, by examining the program’s research-base. What sources and experts did the developers consult in constructing the program? Note an important distinction: by research-base I do not mean evidence that the program improved standardized test scores. Such evidence can be informative, but the program is unlikely to produce writers if actual writing experts were not consulted in the program’s development. Again, an important clarification is needed: by writing experts, I mean individuals who are professional writers, or better yet, editors.
Why does this matter? Wouldn’t individuals with expertise in teaching language arts provide the necessary research-base? No. Instructional experts definitely play a critical role in a program’s development, but if they have never written or edited for publication—something beyond an article here and there—they may lack the knowledge needed to establish the necessary content—the concepts and skills that will develop student writing capacity. Let me illustrate by contrasting how an educational expert and professional writers/editors view writing. I own a textbook used widely in college level courses that train education majors in how to teach the language arts. In the opening chapter, a well-known educator argues that students learn to write by writing. She continues this argument, advocating daily journal writing and weekly story writing for elementary students. For her, frequent writing means engaging students in writing many first drafts with little or no follow-up. Teachers who follow her advice and apply her methods will have students generate large amounts of drafting but little actual writing.
In contrast, when professional editors write about writing, they typically devote one chapter to drafting and nine or more chapters to revising. Writing involves careful crafting of the initial draft. Real writing only begins with drafting, but students in many classrooms spend 90% of the instructional time devoted to writing doing 10% of writing’s actual work! Why? Because the instructional program lacks authenticity; it fails to teach students how to successfully revise their first drafts—it fails to teach students to transform substance into significance.
The research-base matters! Whom did the program’s authors consult to establish the program’s content? If they failed to include insights from professional writers and editors in their initial research, the program likely lacks authenticity. It likely teaches something other than writing.
Coming next: authenticity evidenced in genre variety and purposes for writing
I apologize for the long pause between postings.
I'm beginning a series of postings addressing writing instruction. I know this is a slight departure from the usual emphasis on neurocognitive research, and I will return to that emphasis, but I'm excited about the potential we have to improve student writing achievement. What follows is the introduction to the series which will be continued in several future postings.
Comments & questions are invited!
Transforming Substance Into Significance 1
For years, writing instruction received less emphasis than more easily measured disciplines like reading and mathematics. Standardized testing tended to only assess writing mechanics such as punctuation and grammar—easily measured knowledge (e.g., In which of the following sentences is a comma used correctly?). Since what is tested tends to get taught, actual writing instruction beyond grammar and mechanics received little if any attention. As a result, students learned where to use quotation marks and apostrophes but lacked authentic writing capacity.
Unfortunately, these poor instructional practices continue in many classrooms. Researchers describe our current writing instruction as being stuck in the eighteenth century with little real relationship to actual writing. In other words, we are teaching something other than writing while we claim to be teaching writing. Research also indicates that almost no, if any, relationship exists between mechanics instruction and writing achievement. You could train world-champion sentence diagrammers and never produce a student with exemplary writing skills. The relationship just does not exist.
That is not to say that understanding writing’s mechanics does not have a place in writing instruction. It does, but our narrow focus on it fails to produce proficient writers—even if language scores on standardized tests are high. In fact, research suggests that standardized test scores based on knowledge of writing’s mechanics indicate nothing about actual writing capacity.
What, then, characterizes successful writing instruction? Three traits characterize successful writing instruction: authenticity (the instruction actually teaches writing and not just supporting knowledge/skills), integration (the instruction transfers mechanics to actual writing knowledge and skills), and teacher expertise (the instruction is provided by a teacher who knows and uses quality writing practices).
These three elements are so tightly connected that a lack of any one diminishes the others. For example, authentic writing instruction has to be integrated instruction taught by a teacher who knows how writing’s mechanics (punctuation and grammar) translate into good writing practices. Effective writing instruction illustrates all three; one cannot exist without the other two. Let’s examine each one separately and then explore their interactions within effective instruction.
If you missed the segment "Of Mice and Memory" on PBS's Nova, take a few minutes to view it here. It's a fascinating report, and one that will make you want to keep (or get) moving!
Thanks, Staci, for alerting me to this!
For several years, researchers presented memory types as being semantic or episodic. (Other memory types also exist—e.g., muscle memory.) Semantic memories hold factual content, such as Albany is the capital of New York. Episodic memories may also hold factual content but within a context commonly thought to be narrative in structure. For example, I can recall being a narrator for the first third of my second grade class’s dramatic presentation of Bambi. Notice how the memory includes contextualized information, actually forming a small narrative: “Once upon a time, Kevin narrated the opening portion of the play Bambi performed by his second-grade class…” Recalling that Albany is New York’s capital lacks the same potential for plot.
Dr. Robert A. Burton (2008) suggests a new view of memory types. Semantic memories remain those “that require only memorization,” but rather than episodic memories, Burton suggests perceptual memories as a better label. Perceptual memories require “decision making, logical analysis, or reasoning,” and can undergo “revisions, augmentations, and diminutions” (p. 85). Perceptual memories, in other words, require cognitive processing that exceeds memorization.
This does not negate the reality of memories stored in episodic structures. We certainly can tell stories and can even weave plot and drama into memories of common experiences. However, Burton’s suggested change recognizes that we use more than narrative to process and structure new data as we construct memories.
Constructing semantic vs. perceptual memories requires different approaches to learning. Combined with multiple rehearsals, comprehension can empower low-level learning—i.e., things “learned” by rote. For example, if I merely memorize the Gettysburg Address, my sole concern is restating the words in their correct order. I can accomplish this by identifying Lincoln’s words in their correct order, and repeating them until I easily recall and restate the entire speech.
But if I want to understand the Gettysburg Address—if I want to grasp the meaning of Lincoln’s words—so I can use my understanding in future problem solving, decision making, logical analyses, or reasoning, my mind must engage additional processes. I must construct perceptual memories. Why? Understanding taps into perceptual thought, thinking that overlays the new data with known experience and weaves the two to produce meaning. Such thinking requires more than restating and sorting details; it requires elaboration.
The Architecture of Learning™ instructional design model aids teachers in distinguishing instructional material types and in designing teaching that fosters authentic learning. Burton’s view of semantic vs. perceptual memories supports the roles of both comprehension and elaboration in learning, and the greater role one may have over the other according to the memories being formed and the material being taught.
Want to know more about Dr. Burton’s work and writing? He’ll be discussing his book On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You’re Not on an upcoming episode of The Brain Science Podcast.
Burton, R. A. (2008). On being certain: Believing you are right even when you’re not. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Despite fire alarms and building evacuations, I enjoyed and learned much from the participants in the inaugural Writer’s Stylus™ training. (And I’m sure those evacuations will make great writing material!) About twenty educators from various Philadelphia- and New York City-area schools made this week unforgettable. Together, we explored visioning’s role in the writing process, revision’s “waves of improvement,” the coaching cycle and its upward influence on student achievement, the role of instruction and mechanics in writing development, and integration of multiple methods to optimize student writing growth.
We also examined interesting brain- and learning-related aspects of writing, such as:- The brain constructs understanding by recognizing emerging relationships or patterns. Writing is meaning making in that it promotes the thinking necessary for a writer to understand new experiences or concepts, and when the writing is well constructed, it promotes similar thinking by the reader.
- Writing develops important cognitive functions such as working memory. “Few activities are as cognitively demanding as writing” (Dingfelder, 2006). In fact, different writing phases engage different elements of working memory. While drafting obviously engages verbal working memory, planning a piece of writing actually engages spatial working memory. Writers “represent their ideas visually when trying to structure their essays,” notes neuropsychologist David Galbraith (Dingfelder, 2006). Spatial working memory empowers planning, verbal working memory empowers drafting, and both empower revision as writers evaluate and improve both idea-level structure and word-level details. Improving working memory abilities influences fluid intelligence, capacities “critical for wide variety of cognitive tasks” and “considered one of the most important factors in learning” (Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, & Perrig, 2008). Teaching students to write may not only give them a means of constructing understanding, but may actually equip them for better or more efficient learning in multiple areas. Writing engages “more areas of the brain and involves them more intensely than any activity thus far investigated” (Houston, 2004, p. 8).
- Increasing instructive feedback, such as coaching, increases learning. Marzano (2003) found that students who had teachers that consistently provided timely and specific feedback scored anywhere from 21 to 41 percentage points higher on standardized tests than students who had teachers that failed to provide such feedback. Neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis (2006) offers a likely explanation for this dramatic impact: “One of the most successful strategies for engaging students’ brains in their lessons comes from personal connection and accountability” (p. 82). Through frequent coaching, teachers connect with individual students, hold them accountable, provide an opportunity for student questioning, and optimize learning and achievement.
- Rather than making journals a collection of personal thoughts and feelings (which creates problems for the teacher), journals should be viewed and used as learning tools, in which students write “about concepts or information” they are learning and “the activities in which they are involved in any class” (p. 213).
Houston (2004) explains the results of such an approach:
…we found that journaling was one of the activities that had the greatest impact on student learning and on test scores…Class-ending journal entries were…written during the final ten minutes of every class. We found that to make this entry productive, the full ten minutes were needed, but that those minutes were valuable learning time…At the end of the project,…every teacher indicated that journals were one of the most useful tools they had in helping their students learn…students who had been in the project for three years made remarkable gains on standardized tests. Aside from the test score gains, teachers believed that their students had not only learned how to be good test takers, they had learned how to be good learners (p. 214-217).
If you missed this exciting event, we are identifying dates and locations for future Writer’s Stylus™ training. Contact Clerestory Learning to receive details via email as they develop. If your school or organization is interested in hosting either Architecture of Learning™ or Writer’s Stylus™ training, contact Clerestory Learning for details.
Dingfelder, S. (2006). Writing exercises all aspects of working memory. Monitor on Psychology 37(7).19.
Houston, G. (2004). How writing works: Imposing organizational structure within the writing process. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving Fluid Intelligence With Training on Working Memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(19), 6829-6833.
Marzano, R. J. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Willis, J. D. (2006). Research-based strategies to ignite student learning: insights from a neurologist and classroom teacher. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“Working memory is the gateway to authentic learning,” I wrote earlier this year. Without working memory activation, data will not proceed past sensory registration, preventing consolidation or construction of long-term memory. “Working memory is now known to be a busy, temporary workspace,” explains John Medina (2008), “a desktop the brain uses to process newly acquired information” (p. 124). And the deeper, more elaborate and personal that processing is, the greater the likelihood of data reaching long-term memory.
Recently, researchers at the University of Michigan seem to have discovered a means of improving working memory capacity. Subjects played a simple, Concentration-like card game and then completed tasks requiring fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is a cognitive ability that enables reasoning and problem-solving, especially when tasks do not correspond to previous experience. It plays critical roles in learning.
For the first time, this research team demonstrated not only that working memory capacity can be increased, but that it can also be transferred. And, as the subjects experienced more training, their working memory capacity, and thus their fluid intelligence abilities, increased. Additional training increased achievement (Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, & Perrig, 2008).
This represents important brain-related research for educators! If working memory capacity can be increased, our approaches to working with all learners, but especially struggling learners, may have powerful new options. Increasing working memory capacity can improve learning abilities and many school-related tasks, such as reading comprehension.
Combine this with the attention exercise is getting, and we may be on the verge of a new combination of activities that dramatically influence learning and brain functioning. In addition to Ratey’s recent book, John Medina (2008) discusses exercise’s impact on brain plasticity. “Physical activity,” claims Medina, “is cognitive candy” (p. 22). In addition to increasing blood flow to hippocampal regions of the brain, which are critical for memory formation, exercise increases Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, which keeps neurons healthy and more likely to form connections and encourages the formation of new neurons. Exercise can literally grow the brain!
What does this mean for educators? First, with new research suggesting working memory can be improved, methods for working with all learners should incorporate proven methods. We are not only teaching so students learn, we are teaching them how to learn. By improving their working memory abilities, we can increase their learning in all areas. Second, we can no longer ignore the influence of exercise. We MUST begin to take exercise seriously as a learning tool. However, allow me to clarify this: by exercise, I mean students actually engaging in regular (i.e., daily!) cardiovascular activity. Playing a softball game in gym class won’t cut it, and neither will pocket video games allowed in the playground. We need to be teaching students exercise habits that can last a lifetime.
Think of it—new neurons ready for use, current neurons ready to connect, and working memories operating optimally. What a learning environment we could create inside our students’ heads!
Now, where are my running shoes and that deck of Concentration cards?!?
Before concluding, I want to suggest a couple of resources. If you read only one teaching-learning related book this summer, make it John Medina’s Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. (Order a copy here.) It’s easy to read and loaded with useful information. Dr. Ginger Campbell interviewed Medina on the Brain Science Podcast (download Episode 37). (The show notes for this interview are here.) The book is outstanding, and the interview is excellent. While at the Brain Science Podcast site, check out Episode 38, which features an interview with Jeff Hawkins, the author of On Intelligence. There's a great discussion of pattern recognition that will be of interest to readers with an interest in the Architecture of Learning. Enjoy!
Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle: Pear Press.
“This doesn’t help,” I thought, closing yet another book that claimed it could improve my writing instruction. So many books I read advocated the “writing process” as the only instructional method needed as long as students wrote frequently. “Have them keep a daily journal,” these books suggested—but what would I say to the student who had “nothing to write about?” “Have them share their writing with peers,” suggested others—but how would that improve their writing? And what should I direct them to say to each other? “Diagramming is the gateway to writing excellence,” still others claimed; can you imagine Charles Dickens diagramming all the sentences in A Christmas Carol before publication? I just couldn’t grasp exactly what I should do to develop student writing capacity.
So, I changed direction and began to research what actual writers and editors said about writing. What I discovered dramatically changed my thinking about teaching writing. More than two years later, I am pleased to introduce The Writer’s Stylus: Transforming Substance into Significance, a new professional development program devoted to writing instruction.
This program’s inaugural training event takes place in Philadelphia, PA, June 23-28th. Additional information is available via email through Clerestory Learning's contact form.
Writing is a transformational process, so the training is designed to take you through that process, discovering its waves of progress, gaining insight for personal writing growth, ultimately to develop tomorrow’s authors.
I also want to make you aware of two reading-related and highly informative podcasts. Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid, appears on the Brain Science Podcast for a fascinating interview. Find out why she loves Frog and Toad books, sees reading as essential to sustaining culture, and why she’s concerned about technology’s impacts on reading and thinking abilities. If you haven’t read Wolf’s book, listen first to Dr. Ginger Campbell’s excellent summary and discussion of its content. Go to the Brain Science Podcast website and download Episodes 24 and 29. The show notes are also available: Episode 24, Episode 29. While at the website, I highly recommend you subscribe to the podcast. Subscription is free! Dr. Campbell is an excellent interviewer, and I always find something related to teaching/learning in every episode. You can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes—simply search for “Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell.” Past episodes can also be downloaded at iTunes.
In my next posting, which I hope to make soon, I’ll be discussing some recent research on working memory that should influence our work with struggling learners, especially when combined with the findings on exercise and brain plasticity. I’ll be discussing how research findings from these two areas may combine to give us greater effectiveness with all learners but especially with students who struggle.
