Purpose: Writing is an essential skill that secondary students need to establish for success in their further education, careers, and lives. However, most secondary students in the United States do not achieve the level of writing proficiency expected to ensure academic and future success. One approach that is emerging more in the research…

Writing is a necessary skill in our technological world. Many people have a mobile device that they use for e-mailing, social media, as an alarm clock to start the day, reading the news, searching for information, ordering food, managing transportation (e.g., monitoring traffic, accessing public transit), or for relaxing pursuits, such as watching…

Across the U.S., educators face a common challenge: How can we help all students become strong readers and writers? In the author's state of Tennessee, many educators believe they have a reading crisis. Two-thirds of 3rd graders do not read and write on grade level as measured by the statewide assessment (Tennessee Department of Education, 2019a).…

Many students do not meet expected standards of writing performance, despite the need for writing competence in and out of school. As policy instruments, writing content standards have an impact on what is taught and how students perform. This study reports findings from an evaluation of the content of a sample of seven diverse states' current…

In this single-subject study, we examined the effects of a persuasive writing and self-regulation strategy on the writing of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Six children with ASD worked in pairs to learn a mnemonic-based strategy for planning and writing a persuasive essay using the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD)…

Learning to write is critical in today's world, yet many students are not developing the writing abilities they need to use writing as a powerful tool for learning and for showing what they know. Research indicates that failure to acquire strong writing abilities restricts opportunities for both post-secondary education and employment. This…

The Focused Practice Instructional Approach (FPIA) was based on the Environmental Mode of instruction established by George Hillocks' 1986 meta-analysis for writing instruction. The purpose of this study was to clearly define the FPIA approach using the original studies and test if it was significantly effective in fourth grade classrooms using…

This paper analyzes the influence of three different learning paradigms for learning literacy--formalist, cognitive-processing, and literacy practices--on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It argues that the Common Core State Standards are based largely on a formalist paradigm as evident in the emphasis on teaching text…

The National Writing Project (NWP) is the nation's premier professional development network dedicated to improving the teaching of writing. The NWP network comprises nearly 200 local sites in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. This report presents the results of a seven-year survey study of teachers participating in NWP summer…

The 1982 writing objectives presented in this booklet were developed in preparation for the fourth assessment of writing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The objectives are based on the premise that individuals write for a purpose and an audience, and each objective serves as a section of the booklet. The first…

The report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress entitled "Poor Writing Performance Blamed on Scant Writing Practice" makes it clear that little progress has been made in the improvement of students' writing. This is true in part because the conditions for teaching writing are unsatisfatory. The time has come to undertake a…

Intended to help teachers, curriculum directors, school administrators, and school board members follow through on their commitment to teach students how to become better writers, the techniques and resources described in this booklet are arranged into seven chapters. The first chapter examines whether the "writing crisis" is fact or…

In an effort for schools to obtain Adequate Yearly Progress, the pressure is on to make certain that students are loaded with as much information as possible in order to score well on the high stakes tests. Writing has continued to move down the list of priorities of what is taught because: it is not being tested or is minimally being assessed.…

The 1988 Writing Objectives Assessment is the fifth such assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in grades 4, 8, and 12, since the program began in 1969. The objectives reflect a consensus of opinion regarding the process of writing: that it is used for a variety of purposes and audiences, and that the form and process…

Presents an experimental primary trait rubric designed to assess a writer's support for an argument, and structured as an eleven-cell grid on which a rater can plot a student's score. Describes the grid, and its use in a study of 1,892 eleventh-grade essays. Also describes ways to use the grid to teach invention and arrangement. (JG)