Part Two - 2022 - The International Conference on the Science of Written Expression

Research on strategy instruction in writing has demonstrated strong positive effects on writing quality from elementary school to secondary education to college, especially for students with disabilities and other struggling writers. In this presentation, I focus on what is needed for effective instruction in writing strategies beyond foundational skills and content knowledge. First, writers need discourse knowledge, that is, knowledge about genres and what forms of writing are useful for varied purposes, audiences, and topics. Writing is a means of social communication, and genres are forms developed to meet communicative purposes. Second, writers need cognitive strategies for planning, drafting, and evaluating/revising, as well as strategies for critical reading and integration of sources. Finally, students need metacognitive strategies to manage the complexities of writing, to self-evaluate their work, and to reflect on learning and set new goals for learning. The presentation will include practical examples from my work and that of others.

In this presentation we will share the results of two studies on creative writing, nowadays a neglected element in the language curriculum in The Netherlands. The first study is on the differences and commonalties of writing creative and argumentative texts. Data were the writing processes of about 20 students (age 15-17) who wrote four argumentative and four creative text. We related the process features to text quality and students' creativity scores. Dominant findings were the indirect and direct effects of affective variables and fluency of writing. In the second study we tested the effect of a creative writing course (six weeks) on writing processes and text quality of creative and argumentative tasks. We found positive effects on creative texts, and transfer effects on argumentative writing.

Ten Peze, A., Janssen, T., Rijlaarsdam, G., & van Weijen, D. (2021). Writing creative and argumentative texts: What's the difference? Exploring how task type affects students' writing behaviour and performance. L1-Educational Studie in Language and Literature, 21, 1-38. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2021.21.01.11

Ten Peze, A., Janssen, T., Rijlaarsdam, G., & van Weijen, D. (submitted). Effects of a course in creative writing on text quality and writing processes.

Writing involves multiple writing processes than can be grouped in four cognitive components: planning processes that operate at a semantic level, formulation processes that produce language, execution/motor processes for tracing the text, and finally evaluation processes for assessing adequation of the text being produced with the writer’s communicative goals. How do writers regulate the numerous writing processes when they compose a text? Which are the constraints that affect these writing strategies?

Before describing these strategies, it is important to underline that writing take places in a cognitive system that has limited processing capacity, which constrains how writers engage the different writing processes (Kellogg, 1996; Kellogg et al., 2013, McCutchen, 1996; Olive, 2021, in press). In that frame, one major constraint for writing processes is the limited capacity of working memory. Therefore, I will begin by presenting the relationship between writing processes and working memory. Writing research has indeed confirmed that most of the writing processes function under the supervision of working memory: all executive and non-executive (verbal and visual spatial) components of working memory are involved when composing a text. Research on executive control suggests that the three core executive functions are also involved (Olive, 2021).

In the second part of my talk, I will describe the dynamics of the writing strategies, with a particular focus on coordination of low- and high-level processes. Writing strategies can be understood at least from a chronological perspective that focus on how writing processes follow each other (e.g., Breetvelt et al., 1994, 1996; Kellogg, 1987, 1988; Levy & Ransdell, 1994; Olive et al., 2001). They can also be described in coordination terms, namely by describing how they are simultaneously (or concurrently) used. Efficient concurrent coordination of low- and high-level writing processes is indeed central to producing good-quality texts (Berninger, 1999). I will therefore describe how high-level processes (planning, formulating and evaluation processes) are coordinated with execution processes (Olive, 2014). I will particularly show that changing demands of execution processes change such coordination: coordination of the writing processes is flexible and can shift from sequential to concurrent activation to adapt to cognitive constraints.

The aim of this session is to present a critical overview of the tools which can capture writing across the elementary school years and consider recommendations for research and practice considered. The assessment of children’s writing raises technical and practical challenges. Various approaches to evaluation of written composition have been used by researchers and teachers, including holistic scoring, analytic scoring, quantitative scoring, and curriculum-based measurement measures. These various evaluation approaches differ in purposes and in the underlying assumptions about the dimensionality of written composition.

Indeed, the number of dimensions which are thought to underpin written text production have also been a matter of debate. Earlier studies of composition identified two dimensions in written texts: quality and productivity. Productivity was typically evaluated by the numbers of words or different words produced. Arguably assessments of pupil’s written text should capture these dimensions without placing undue demands on staff training and time, but much depends on the child’s age and their competency in producing written text. Young children or struggling writers, for example, often produce too little text to reliably capture different dimensions.

The roots of beginning writing ability can be traced to the preschool years, as children start to develop essential oral language and early literacy skills that lay a foundation for later literacy success. Indeed, studies indicate that language and literacy skills acquired during preschool are significantly predictive of writing ability a few years later. Yet, prediction from a single point in time represents only a snapshot of early performance and cannot fully describe dynamic aspects of early development that might affect children’s later writing achievement. Examination of growth trajectories may more accurately capture the nature of children’s skill development over time. Specifically, the rate of growth of early skills (i.e., amount of change in a given period of time) may have a meaningful influence on children’s later writing ability, particularly growth during the early childhood period when skills are generally more malleable. This study examined the extent to which children’s development and growth in oral language and literacy skills during the early childhood period predicted writing ability in the primary grades. Participants were 313 children who were tested on a battery of oral language and literacy measures at four time points, beginning during preschool (M age = 4.2 years) and spaced approximately 6 months apart over 1.5 years. Results demonstrated that both children’s early skill levels and rates of growth in oral language and decoding skills predicted later spelling and written composition when children were in kindergarten or first grade. Findings suggest that in addition to having a stronger starting point (i.e., higher initial skill level), the more quickly children can further develop these skills, the more they are able to use them to write productively.

There is growing appreciation of the need for quality literacy instruction for students with complex learning needs (CLN). At last educators are seeking academic measures to drive and align instruction with standards and measure progress. Across the age-span students with significant disabilities often present as beginning writers and demonstrate a mismatch between performance and grade level standards. Educators need solid knowledge of the connections among standards, curricula, and student abilities, and needs. The purpose of this presentation will be to show the uses and power of the Developmental Writing Scale (DWS) in highlighting gains and driving instruction for individuals with significant disabilities. Participants will see how this data enables changes in mindset that written language is an important form of communication for ALL individuals.

Student outcome data for Years 1 and 2 of The Early Writing Project (EWP), a three-year IES funded project, will be presented. Data will include pre- and post- test outcome measures. These outcome measures will show how the implementation of data-based individualization (DBI) improved student outcomes on early writing skills. The data will be analyzed to better understand how the implementation of DBI-EWP affects certain subgroups of students’ early writing skills.

School-age children and adolescents need to develop their language and communication skills, both to support academic learning and prepare them for the rest of their lives. Students with language and literacy disorders, including dyslexia, dysgraphia, and oral-written developmental language disorders need intensified instruction, but also to experience the joy of communicating through writing and influencing their peers. This presentation provides an overview of essential components of a K-12 classroom and curriculum-based approach in which speech-language pathologists and other language/literacy specialists collaborate with teachers to help all students improve their language, reading, and communication skills through writing. Components include using language level analysis to assess written language samples, providing writing process opportunities integrated with digital literacy instruction, targeting individualized needs with group and personal minilessons and scaffolding, and building a sense of audience and community effort. Case examples will illustrate turning points and broader outcomes at several grade levels.

School-age children and adolescents need to develop their language and communication skills, both to support academic learning and prepare them for the rest of their lives. Students with language and literacy disorders, including dyslexia, dysgraphia, and oral-written developmental language disorders need intensified instruction, but also to experience the joy of communicating through writing and influencing their peers. This presentation provides an overview of essential components of a K-12 classroom and curriculum-based approach in which speech-language pathologists and other language/literacy specialists collaborate with teachers to help all students improve their language, reading, and communication skills through writing. Components include using language level analysis to assess written language samples, providing writing process opportunities integrated with digital literacy instruction, targeting individualized needs with group and personal minilessons and scaffolding, and building a sense of audience and community effort. Case examples will illustrate turning points and broader outcomes at several grade levels.

We present a theory- and evidence-based multi-component writing intervention, called Self-Regulated Strategy Development Plus (SRSD+). SRSD+ integrates evidence-based writing instruction, SRSD (Graham, Harris, & McKeown, 2013; Harris & Graham, 2017), with explicit and structured instruction on oral language and transcription skills (thus called plus). SRSD instruction includes explicit, interactive learning of strategies for genre-general and genre-specific writing (including discourse knowledge and academic language), strategies for self-regulating strategy use and writing behavior throughout the writing process (e.g., goal setting, self-assessment, self-instructions, and self-reinforcement), and development of engagement and self-efficacy for writing. SRSD+ expands SRSD in novel and important ways by incorporating key component skills of writing, transcription (spelling and handwriting) and oral language skills (e.g., vocabulary and sentence proficiency). We present SRSD+ instruction, and evidence from a small-scale randomized controlled trial with students in Grades 1 and 2.

Writing consists of multiple language levels (MLL) that require integrated strengths in translation (coherence) and transcription (cohesion) for meaningful text production (Crossley & McNamara, 2016). However, ability at one level, whether word, sentence, or text, does not predict ability at any other language level because of individual variability (Berninger, 2009). As such, students will present with diverse strengths and difficulties with translation and transcription depending on a variety of ever-present wildcards, such as task, topic, motivation, audience, working memory, etc. (Wilson et al., 2017). A reality is that the writing task also may obstruct a student’s access to their repertoire of discourse and linguistic choices, differentially impacting the generation of a more coherent and cohesive text. The result is that, often, the focus of writing problems becomes the gaps within and between levels of language (Tolchinsky, 2016) rather than discovering strengths, which may not be readily visible in a student’s academic writing. The presentation’s intent is to reframe the gap perspective by focusing on strengths that middle school students with persisting learning disabilities (LD) employ in orchestrating language at the subword (spelling), word (vocabulary complexity), syntactic, and text levels for the purpose of composing an academic text.

Using case illustrations throughout, presenters will describe the MLL as critical components of coherence (the global level) and cohesion (the local level), as these aspects continuously intermingle in producing written texts. A total of 19 students (mean age, 12.8 years) with LD, who met rigorous research criteria and had persistent writing problems despite ongoing intervention, participated. They each produced a written text in response to a prompt about how astronauts wrote while exploring outer space. All texts were analyzed at the global (textual) and local (syntactic, word, and subword) levels. Global analysis focused on clause package complexity (Katzenberger, 2004). The local level analyses included syntactic dependencies (Davidi & Berman, 2014), elaborated noun phrases, less frequent words, and spelling accuracy (Bahr et al., 2020). A combination of quantitative and qualitative measures (Dockrell et al., 2018) was applied to yield MLL patterns for the individual students. Results indicated four patterns: High Global-High Local; High Global-Low Local; Low Global-High Local; and Low Global-Low Local. Spelling appeared to be independent relative to its association with other MLLs. Discussion of these patterns will reveal student-specific strengths that can be developed in classroom instruction for incorporating multiple purposes and multiple audiences into diverse academic writing activities (Dockrell et al., 2018). The fundamental instructional goal is to reframe the focus from gaps to leveraging students’ MLL strengths.

Writing consists of multiple language levels (MLL) that require integrated strengths in translation (coherence) and transcription (cohesion) for meaningful text production (Crossley & McNamara, 2016). However, ability at one level, whether word, sentence, or text, does not predict ability at any other language level because of individual variability (Berninger, 2009). As such, students will present with diverse strengths and difficulties with translation and transcription depending on a variety of ever-present wildcards, such as task, topic, motivation, audience, working memory, etc. (Wilson et al., 2017). A reality is that the writing task also may obstruct a student’s access to their repertoire of discourse and linguistic choices, differentially impacting the generation of a more coherent and cohesive text. The result is that, often, the focus of writing problems becomes the gaps within and between levels of language (Tolchinsky, 2016) rather than discovering strengths, which may not be readily visible in a student’s academic writing. The presentation’s intent is to reframe the gap perspective by focusing on strengths that middle school students with persisting learning disabilities (LD) employ in orchestrating language at the subword (spelling), word (vocabulary complexity), syntactic, and text levels for the purpose of composing an academic text.

Using case illustrations throughout, presenters will describe the MLL as critical components of coherence (the global level) and cohesion (the local level), as these aspects continuously intermingle in producing written texts. A total of 19 students (mean age, 12.8 years) with LD, who met rigorous research criteria and had persistent writing problems despite ongoing intervention, participated. They each produced a written text in response to a prompt about how astronauts wrote while exploring outer space. All texts were analyzed at the global (textual) and local (syntactic, word, and subword) levels. Global analysis focused on clause package complexity (Katzenberger, 2004). The local level analyses included syntactic dependencies (Davidi & Berman, 2014), elaborated noun phrases, less frequent words, and spelling accuracy (Bahr et al., 2020). A combination of quantitative and qualitative measures (Dockrell et al., 2018) was applied to yield MLL patterns for the individual students. Results indicated four patterns: High Global-High Local; High Global-Low Local; Low Global-High Local; and Low Global-Low Local. Spelling appeared to be independent relative to its association with other MLLs. Discussion of these patterns will reveal student-specific strengths that can be developed in classroom instruction for incorporating multiple purposes and multiple audiences into diverse academic writing activities (Dockrell et al., 2018). The fundamental instructional goal is to reframe the focus from gaps to leveraging students’ MLL strengths.