About the Author: Dr. Lana Danielson is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. She can be reached via email at ldaniels@usd.edu.

The improvement of writing is a target goal of many school districts. State and national standardized assessments indicate that our students fall short in producing quality writing. According to a recent issue of Education Week, "More American students have mastered basic skills in writing than in reading. . . but few can write precise, engaging, and coherent prose appropriate to their grade levels" (Manzo, 1999, p. 1). The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rated student writing using three achievement levels: basic, proficient, and advanced. Results of the 1998 administration of the NAEP writing assessment indicate that "16% of fourth and eighth graders, and 22% of twelfth graders, have not mastered even basic writing skills" (Manzo, 1999, p. 1).

Given the breadth of research on composition, it would seem that improving the quality of writing would be an easy task. However, there are multiple perspectives on what it means to write and write well (North, 1987). In this article I have identified research that has contributed to the classroom teacher’s understanding of not only what it means to teach composition but how it might be implemented in a meaningful and productive manner to improve students’ writing.

Functions and Audience in Writing

The purpose of writing influences how it will be evaluated. In general, those who define writing as an expressive function focus on the writer’s experience while those who define writing as communication based on internal forms focus on the content and the reader’s experience.

Britton (1975) described three kinds of writing. Transactional writing is used "to get things done." Its purpose is to inform, to advise, to persuade, or to instruct. In short, it is a means to an end. A second category is expressive. This is language "close to the self," often a kind of "thinking aloud" on paper. It reflects the writer’s immediate thoughts and feelings; it is relaxed and familiar rather than formal; and thus it allows the writer to take risks. According to Britton, it is in this mode that "we frame the tentative first drafts of new ideas...where in times of crisis. . . we attempt to work our way towards some kind of a resolution" (p. 82). A third category, the poetic, is language used as an art form, and it exists for its own sake.

As a novice, the learner relies on the expressive mode; the task and the audience remain close to his or her experience. It is through the expressive mode that the writer is able to move toward the transactional or poetic. As he or she gains expertise, choice of function is possible. The writer is able to express thoughts in different ways, moving from the intimacy of his or her own thoughts to accommodate communication framed by different contexts and for different audiences.

All three functions of writing occur in the classroom but not in any apparent kind of balanced proportion. Britton (1975) reported that the primary kind of writing assigned in classrooms was transactional and that much of it was "slotting" of information that required minimal actual composition and low level cognitive processes (e.g., fill-in-the-blank, note taking, short answers). The primary audience was the teacher-as-examiner. Applebee (1981) came to the same conclusions when he conducted similar research in the United States. Not only did these findings encourage teachers to consider the nature of assigned writing tasks and audience, but it also encouraged the examination of how writing connects to thinking.

Writing-to-Learn

The connection between writing and learning has been well documented. Research indicates that learning and writing are meaning-making processes that facilitate the learner’s ability to discover connections, describe processes, express emerging understanding, raise questions, and find answers (Mayher, Lester, & Pradl, 1983; Langer & Applebee, 1987).

Learning involves making distinctions between different types of information. Schema theory provides an understanding of how prior knowledge is used to comprehend new information. Sometimes their prior knowledge helps learners to assimilate information; that is, it assists them in remembering certain facts. At other times, learners accommodate a new conceptualization. This occurs when learners reconstruct their understanding by interpreting the new information in relation to their prior knowledge (Rumelhart & Norman, 1977). While writing can facilitate assimilation of information through the process of recording new facts (transactional writing), it is especially useful in promoting accommodation in which the shaping and sharpening of this information occurs and new meaning can be constructed (expressive and/or transactional writing).

Research (Applebee, 1977; Fulwiler & Young, 1982; Gere, 1985; Martin, 1984) supports writing-across-the-curriculum as an approach to learning. Findings suggest that activities in writing should not be isolated from the subject matter itself. To fully understand any discipline or subject, students must learn to write in the subject, to understand the conventions used and the unique kinds of vocabulary which characterize it. Thus the time invested in writing can and should enhance the desired understandings in all content areas.

Research in the use of personal journals (Mayher et al., 1983; Fulwiler, 1987) indicates that expressive writing accommodates such learning across disciplines well because it employs a variety of functions and audiences. The journal might serve as a reporting tool or as a safe place for examining personal reactions. It might be used to foster self understanding or to communicate with others. It can be used to record one’s thinking in progress, to process new ideas in relation to what is already known or experienced, to ask questions, synthesize ideas, and evaluate current thoughts about new concepts and their applications. As Britton (1975) observed, when students become more adept in their understanding and expression in the discipline, the successful movement towards more transactional forms of writing can occur.

Writing Process

Researchers (Emig, 1971; Perl, 1979; Briddwell,1980b; Matsuhashi,1981; Flower & Hayes, 1981; Graves, 1983; Calkins, 1986; 1991) have explored how writers write, looking most specifically at how students plan, draft, and revise their work. Emig’s research (1971) suggested that writing is not linear but recursive, thus shifting focus of writing from product to process, from ends to means. Emig identified five stages of the composing process as follows:

1. Prewriting (generation of ideas, mental rehearsal for writing)
2. Drafting (writing in progress)
3. Revision (re-see ideas)
4. Editing (cosmetics/error detection)
5. Publication (public sharing of product)

Emig noted that writers move back and forth among the first four stages as they recognize a need to rework their written thoughts. This model has been useful in aiding teachers in the instruction of writing and in assisting students in the production of it. Not every piece of writing needs to be taken to the final stage of publication. Teachers might focus on just prewriting or prewriting and a first draft, reserving the other stages for work that will be more formally evaluated. As students gain facility in fitting the stages into their thinking and employing them in their composing processes, they become more skillful in generating meaningful written discourse.

Teachers, regardless of content or discipline, can use this model in facilitating writing in their classrooms. Expressive writing in the form of journals might be used to initiate prewriting and the generation of ideas or to identify personal responses to target learning. This skill will be applied as students plan and write a first draft, a task common in content areas that use essay questions on tests or in direct writing assessment where only a single draft will be produced. Revision is the refining stage of the content and asks students to look more closely at ideas, while editing focuses on the mechanics of writing. Teachers have capitalized on peer response at both the revision and editing stages as a way to extend the audience, to honor writing as a social learning experience, to encourage meaningful feedback among students, and to hone proofreading skills that transfer to one’s own writing (Mayher et al., 1983; Tchudi, 1997).

Mechanics of Writing

Writing involves both what is said (content) and how (form). Perhaps of all the discussions on composition, it is the role of mechanics that has generated the most debate. In 1963 Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, and Schoer looked at the body of research in composition. They wrote that

This was a powerful message to some teachers who accepted it as permission to abdicate responsibility for the teaching of any mechanics. In the years following the Braddock et al. study, two approaches to writing instruction emerged. First was the Whole-Language Movement with its focus on emergent literacy and limited direct instruction in writing conventions for young learners (Goodman K., Goodman Y., & Hood, W., 1989; Smith, 1995). Second was the growth of the National Writing Project with its orientation toward student-centered expressive writing (Murphy, 1990). Misunderstandings about both approaches tended to support the interpretation that teachers need not emphasize standard writing conventions such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure--skills generally taught under the heading of "grammar." Although subsequent research on the effect of grammar instruction on writing found no significant difference between the formal teaching of grammar and teaching no grammar, the design of many of the studies (e.g., no pre-and post writing samples, control for teacher bias) has been called into question (Hillocks, 1986). Many of the studies focusing on sentence combining and construction have shown positive growth in syntactic maturity of writers. However, these studies have not responded to the question of reduction of errors and it is this aspect of writing that often determines a rater’s view of the quality of the product.

Emig (1971) concluded that "most of the criteria by which students’ school-sponsored writing is evaluated concern the accidents rather than the essences of discourse---that is, spelling, punctuation, penmanship, and length" (p. 93). Shaughnessy’s (1977) "territory of tolerable error" (p. 122) offered some balance between form and content. What a teacher expects shapes what he or she will see. Teachers can focus on either what the error is or why the error occurred. Often errors reflect students’ attempts to approximate standard conventions and their errors represent a failure to replicate the standard successfully; that is, they are overcorrecting and making errors because they are tying not to do so. Thus, Shaughnessy suggested that teachers must decide what a tolerable error is by determining which errors matter most in the communication process and which can be corrected over time to allow students to grow in this area of their expertise.

Weaver (1996) advocated teaching grammar within the context of writing. She argued that a behaviorist view that drill alone will result in accurate applications of rules is faulty because it assumes that concepts students learn in isolation will be transferred to other contexts. She proposed that a constructivist model encourages students to grapple with both the meaning of the conventions and their useful applications, noting, like Shaughnessy, that errors are likely to occur during the learning process because students actually try to incorporate their new conceptualizations into their writing. Weaver suggested that teachers use incidental lessons to introduce concepts and inductive lessons to guide students in an awareness of grammatical patterns and to provide opportunities for students to arrive at their own generalizations about use. Mini-lessons would present new information of value to writers while extended mini-lessons would offer opportunities for elaboration and collaborative practice.

Conclusions

Although this is only a brief review of the literature on writing instruction, it does offer to us at least four paths to consider in the improvement of student writing.

4. Finally, the research of Shaughnessy (1977) and Weaver (1996) offers an alternative to the choice between isolated grammar instruction and no formal teaching of mechanics. Teaching for understanding and appropriate application within the writing context provides students with knowledge that they can use as they develop as proficient writers.

References

Applebee, A. (1977). Writing across the curriculum: The London projects. English Journal 66:9, 81-85.

Applebee, A. (1981). Writing in the secondary school. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Braddock, R., Lloyd-Jones, R., & Schoer, L. (1963). Research in Written Composition. Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. (ED 003 374)

Briddwell, L. (1980b). Revising strategies in twelfth grade students’ transactional writing. Research in the Teaching of English, 14, 197-222.

Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., & Rosen, H. (1975). The development of writing abilities (11-18). London: MacMillan Education.

Calkins, L. (1980). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Calkins, L. (1991). Living between the lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Emig, J. (1971). The composing processes of twelfth graders. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1981c). The pregnant pause: An inquiry into the nature of planning.

Research in the Teaching of English, 15, 229-43.

Fulwiler, T. (Ed.). (1987). The journal book. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Fulwiler, T., & Young, A. (Eds.). (1982). Language connections: Writing and reading across the curriculum. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Gere, A. R. (Ed.). (1985). Roots in the sawdust: Writing to learn across the disciplines. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Goodman, K.; Goodman, Y.; & Hood, W. (1989). The whole language evaluation book. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graves, D. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. Urbana, IL: National Conference on Research in English.

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Manzo, K. (1999, October 6). U.S. students lack writing proficiency. Education Week, pp. 1, 18.

Martin, N. (Ed.). (1984). Writing across the curriculum. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook.

Matsuhashi, A. (1981). Pausing and planning: The tempo of written discourse production. Research in the Teaching of English, 15, 113-134.

Mayher, J., Lester, N., & Pradl, G. (1983). Learning to write/writing to learn. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Murphy, J. (Ed.). (1990). A short history of writing instruction: From ancient Greece to twentieth-century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras.

North, S. (1987). The making of knowledge in composition: Portrait of an emerging field. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Perl, S. (1979). The composing processes of unskilled college writers. Research in the Teaching of English, 13, 317-36.

Rumelhart, D. & Norman, D. (1977). Accretion, tuning and restructuring: Three modes of learning. In J. Cotton and R. Klatzky (Eds.), Semantic factors in cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Shaughnessy, M. (1977). Errors and expectations: A guide for the teacher of basic writing. NY: Oxford University Press.

Smith, F. (1995). Between hope and havoc: Essays into human learning and education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Tchudi, S. (1997). Alternatives to grading student writing. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Weaver, C. (1996). Teaching grammar in context. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.