Rethinking the Writing Process

When I talk with English teachers about how they teach the writing process, they outline various methods of brainstorming and planning and then share samples of graphic organizers. Students are expected to create first drafts (often written by hand, but sometimes typed) and final drafts typed with corrections and improvements. Most English teachers in our school board require students to submit all of their process work with the final product and the process work is assessed as part of the assignment (included on the rubric).

But I don’t write this way. Why would I expect my students to?

I think it is because I can’t imagine or understand the alternative.

When I was in university (the first time) I used the ‘traditional’ writing process, because I didn’t grow up writing on a computer. I was taught how to plan and draft and when I completed that process I booked time in the school’s computer lab. Upon my return to university 6 years later, I typed everything on my PC, but I still had to print copies so I could revise and edit. I couldn’t read my errors on the screen. Now, writing just seems ‘to happen’ on my laptop. I know I am using a process, but it seems fluid and keeps pace with my thoughts. I revise. I move text around, but I don’t think of this as happening in stages or steps. My writing process has changed with technology. As the nature of text has changed, so has the nature of writing.

I’m honestly struggling to envision the teaching of this new writing process.

My questions are:

1. What does your writing process look like?

2. Is it the same as it was ten years ago?

3. What does this mean for English teachers who teach students the writing process?

4. How might we teach this explicitly?

5. How might we model it?

Making Collaborative Writing Authentic

There isn’t any doubt that collaborative writing, when used properly in class, is beneficial to learners: Learning is social and collaborative writing improves both writing and collaboration skills. Collaboration can also lead to a better end-product than that created by any one individual. My fear is that teachers use collaborative writing as a promising practice, but they struggle to recreate authentic, real-world applications of collaborative writing in their classrooms.

Authentic Collaborative Writing Requires a Purpose for Collaboration

For collaborative writing to be authentic, there needs to be a purpose for writing that calls for collaboration, collective intelligence, and/or a unified voice. I work with teachers from across my school board and they are putting forth a powerful effort to engage students in writing. I have witnessed collaborative writing on white boards with different coloured markers that help the teacher track student contributions. I have listened to accounts of students who resent the time it takes to come to consensus and the work required to co-construct a simple paragraph. My sense is that in many instances, students are questioning the purpose and the value of collaborative writing activities.

Outside of the school-world, we use collaborative writing when we

• want the product to be the best it can be instead of the best we are able to produce individually and independently.
• need to represent the ‘power of the people’ in a unified voice.
• need to represent various perspectives in one text.
• recognize the value in vetting ideas and creating work with others who may have perspectives that differ from our own.

These same opportunities or needs should drive collaborative writing in the classroom.

Authentic Collaborative Writing Calls for the Right Tools

Word Processing - Let them type the ideas, the draft and the final version, please. When I’ve co-written memos or reports with coworkers we talk, correct and one person types. There are no pens involved because pens can’t keep up with the dialogue.

Google Docs or Etherpad - We often assume that our students know how to use the technology available to them. They don’t, but they need to learn. Just before Christmas, my daughter had a group project due. The group was supposed to write and then perform a 15 minute play. When we were hit with a snow-day, my daughter worried about meeting her due date. I suggested Google Docs. After 10 minutes of explaining (me) and locating classmates (her - all online) they were writing and they added an element that I wouldn’t have considered: instant messaging. The combination of these two tools allowed them to co-construct a text and share their OMG moments when they felt they had written something brilliant. If they had wanted to, they could have invited their teacher as a reader and she could have tracked their contributions.

When we teach students how to use tools like Google Docs or Etherpad to collaboratively create a piece of writing, we give them transportable skills and tools. They can collaborate anywhere (almost) and any time, inside or outside of school. They become better collaborators; they become better writers.

I look forward to your input on this topic. A text about collaborative writing should be collaboratively written, don’t you think?

Photo by bgblogging

Help Students Develop Summarization Skills

Marzano lists summarization as one of the top nine effective teaching strategies. This idea is reinforced by Avon Maitland teacher inquiry groups, who have recognized that students' introductions and conclusions improve as students' summarization skills advance.

Teachers help students develop summarization skills by

Activating Background Knowledge

A person's background/experience influences what he notices and understands when reading. If a student is going to be successful at identifying the important points to be included in a summary, we must ensure the student has the background to do so, or teach to create that background. If, for example, you want students to summarize instructions about how to use a piece of equipment in the woodshop, you might have students watch a demonstration before you have them read about how the equipment works.

Teaching Text Structures

Students will have an easier time summarizing when they understand the structures of texts. Teach students how to identify chronological order, comparison and contrast, problem and solution and cause and effect structures in texts.

Priming Students' Brains

Without a purpose for reading, students may struggle to identify the important information in a text. The teacher can help students by giving them a purpose for reading. "Read this article and summarize the safety tips you need to know when operating a table saw" will get a different summary from students than "read this article and summarize how to use a table saw."

Summarizing Lessons at the Opening and Closing of Class

When we introduce a lesson by summarizing what students are going to do and learn, and then close the lesson again by revisiting the key learning expectations of that class, we model summarization for our students.

Giving Students Tools for Encountering Text

Reading a text more than once is important to identifying and understanding information. Students also need to know how to 'mark' a text with symbols or words that indicate, this part is important, I agree with this, etc. If they are using textbooks, give students sticky notes for marking a text.

Explore note making as a way to help develop summarization skills. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes

Explicit Teaching of Summarization Improves Student Writing

I have tracked down a few suggestions for teaching summary writing. Educational research on writing strategies and our own Avon Maitland inquiry group questions indicate that many adolescents struggle when asked to summarize what they’ve read. Research also acknowledges that through the explicit teaching of summarization skills, we can improve student writing.

In Writing Next, Graham and Perin tell us to

[t]each adolescents strategies and procedures for summarizing reading material, as this improves their ability to concisely and accurately present this information in writing. Various online and print sources on summarization outline six basic rules.

1. Delete trivial material.
2. Delete repetitious material.
3. Substitute a general term for a list of specific terms (collapse lists).
4. Combine a list of actions into a broader, single action (integrate information).
5. Select a topic sentence.
6. Create a topic sentence.

Summary Skills in Grades 5, 7 and Beyond

According to Hahn and Garner, authors of Synthesis of Research on Students’ Ability to Summarize Text, by 5th and 7th grade students can work through rules one and two. Secondary school students can follow the rules up to rule five, but have difficulty with rule six, creating a topic sentence.

Mentor Texts

To help students build summary skills, teachers can use mentor texts. To do this, have students read short articles and corresponding summaries of those articles. When reviewing the summaries, students should identify where the six basic rules for summarization have been implemented. Students may also need time to practice each one of the six basic rules in smaller tasks as a way to scaffold learning.

Explicit Teaching

The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat recognizes that

there is a growing body of research and evidence-based findings that identify summarization as one of the essential skills that improves reading comprehension, writing proficiency and student achievement in general. The skill of summarization needs to be explicitly taught, in all subject areas in order
for students to effectively create and interpret increasingly complex texts.

Watch the a Podcast on Summary Writing – from the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, January 2009