What This Means for Instruction

Here are some general guidelines to help educators plan and implement instruction in the writing process:

• Provide instruction in the writing process. Remind students that the process is not a lock-step set of stages but a recursive process which professionals, as well as student writers, use.
• Design writing assignments that have a clear audience focus. Teachers may want to provide instruction and guidance to students to address audience needs in their writing.
• Establish goals for writing within writing tasks, for individuals or the class as needed. For example, within an essay-writing assignment, have students who need extra work pay particular attention to the development of conclusions or the use of supporting details (Marzano, 2001).
• Remember that not all parts of the process are necessary for every piece of writing; focused mini-lessons can be useful for targeting specific writing skills. See resources from Lucy Calkins or Nancie Atwell for classroom suggestions on teaching writing.
• Provide students with models of good writing.
• Provide students who are experiencing difficulty with scaffolds. These may be, for example, skeletons that help students organize their ideas into a framework tailored to a particular writing type (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992).
• Allow time for each stage of the writing process: planning, prewriting, drafting and revising and editing. Model for students how to engage in each step, as necessary.
• Involve students in the assessment of their work. Involve students in the creation and refinement of rubrics at the beginning of writing tasks. Have students engage in peer- and self-editing of drafts using those rubrics.
• Save student work on portfolios or some other organization system and have students reflect on their progress over time (U.S. Department of Education, 1999).