Parents of struggling writers worry about their children's struggle. They see their children's tears. They hear their protests. They feel their pain. And generally, they ask three questions:
- Why does she struggle?
- What will help her?
- Why didn't her (or his) writing evaluations help?
In this first of two articles, I'll talk about Sheila, a composite of many struggling writers with whom I've worked. If, like Sheila, your child or student struggles with writing, this article may help both parents and teachers to develop a writing program focused on her needs.
Below, I'll briefly discuss critical-but-often-ignored areas of writing evaluations, followed by important questions to guide evaluation(s) aimed at improving instruction. As you'll soon suspect, answering these questions will involve far more than standardized testing. It will involve several observations and interviews.
But if these questions are fully and accurately answered, they'll be a boon to planning a program likely to save the school years of expense and frustration while accelerating the child's progress — academically, socially and emotionally. Without such instructionally-relevant questions and answers, progress will depend on a roll of the dice.
In the second article, I'll discuss a common but inadequate evaluation process that ignores many active causes of children's struggles with writing, often triggering more harm than good. Knowing the nature and weaknesses of this process may help you convince school personnel to get full and accurate answers to evaluation questions. Then, to get an evaluation likely to help the child become a proficient and motivated writer, I'll suggest actions you may need to take.
Most of what I'll say springs from the belief that to plan effective programs requires accurately identifying:
- What the struggling writer does well
- What she struggles with
- What is actively causing or intensifying her struggles
Please remember that what's true for Sheila and her parents may be true for you and your child.
Important areas of evaluation that are often neglected
Before Sheila's parents and school personnel can design a program likely to improve her writing, they need to ask and answer many questions. Standardized testing cannot answer these. Below are important issues and questions that need full and accurate answers. Preceding the questions are research-based reasons for asking them.
Writing strengths and weaknesses
The reason: Knowing the specific aspects of writing in which children are weak or strong is critical to determining what to teach them.
The questions: In class and at home, in which aspects of writing does Sheila do as well as average-achieving children? If not as well, which three aspects are her strongest? Which aspects cause her the most difficulty? For Sheila to make substantial academic and motivational progress in writing over the next two months, which three aspects of writing are most important for her to master?
Schedule and cognitive load
The reason: Too great of a cognitive load — such as three difficult and cognitively taxing classes in a row — will temporarily deplete willpower, attention and enthusiasm for learning. Often, this will look like a loss of self-control.
The questions: How can Sheila's school improve her schedule to maximize her willpower, attention and enthusiasm for learning? How can the school ensure that an easier, highly motivating class follows each cognitively depleting one? How can her teachers reduce the difficulty of her cognitively depleting classes without watering them down?
Self-efficacy and persistence
The reason: Practically speaking, self-efficacy is Sheila's accurate belief that if she makes a moderate rather than a extraordinary effort, she can succeed on a specific task, like writing a short letter to her mother. If her self-efficacy is strong, she's much more likely to make and sustain the effort than if it's weak.
If she thinks she'll fail or that success will require her to continually make extraordinary, emotionally-draining efforts, she's likely to procrastinate endlessly, resist writing and quit at the first hint of difficulty. Typically, struggling writers with weak self-efficacy for writing lack the persistence needed for writing. By itself, weak self-efficacy commonly sabotages well-designed writing instruction.
The questions: First, how weak or strong is Sheila's self-efficacy for writing? Second, if it's weak, how can her teachers, counselors and parents strengthen it? And finally, how can her teachers seamlessly, systematically and unobtrusively integrate self-efficacy strategies into a quality writing program?
Motivation
The reason: Writing is hard work. Let me repeat this: Writing is hard work. Unless writing itself or its outcome is important to Sheila, she's unlikely to invest much effort.
She needs to expect that writing will help her achieve one of her goals — a good grade, praise from her teacher, smiles from her parents, respect from classmates, an opportunity to paint with words, the satisfaction of creativity, a sense of mastery, an opportunity to share her thoughts, 10 minutes of free time. After all, if something is difficult for adults who believe the rewards are unlikely or not worth the effort, few would invest much if any effort.
The questions: Does Sheila have enough motivation to persist with writing, a task that's often hard, complex and lonely? Does she have the motivation to persist with a writing task that might take lots of planning, preparation, time, focus, self-monitoring and a willingness to continually critique and revise her work?
Expectations
The reason: People's expectations often determine their behavior.
The questions: When Sheila is asked to write something, does she expect quality instruction, an achievable task, encouraging feedback and timely support? Or does she expect poor instruction, an impossibly difficult task, upsetting feedback and little if any support?
Strategy
The reason: Writing strategies are tools that lay out — in understandable, relatively brief, explicit and sequential steps — what writers must do to succeed. They're roadmaps that most struggling writers must understand, memorize, master, believe in and often use to become proficient writers.
The questions: Has Sheila mastered one or two simple, structured writing strategies such as POW — Pick your idea; Organize your important points; Write and then write more? And does she correctly and conscientiously follow its steps, or does she procrastinate endlessly or unreflectively and haphazardly write down whatever pops into her mind?
Interest
The reason: Topics that interest children hold their attention and engage them far more than ones that bore them. Although this is self evident, it's frequently ignored.
The questions: What topics will likely interest Sheila? What will she more likely want to write about? When writing about topics that interest her, do her writing problems lessen?
Logic and knowledge of topic
The reason: People who care little about logic or know little about their topic reveal themselves quickly. They use irrelevant information, misplace sentences and paragraphs, and generally produce gibberish that confuses readers.
The questions: Before writing, does Sheila learn a great deal about her topic and then jot down and logically order her ideas? Does she eliminate unimportant ideas and logically organize support for the important ones?
Knowledge of writing
The reason: Good writers are good readers who have learned to distinguish good from poor writing. They know what distinguishes the two.
The questions: For Sheila's instructional and developmental level, does she understand why one piece of writing is terrible and another excellent? Does she know what small steps she can take to improve her writing?
Revisions
The reason: Most drafts are "not ready for prime time." That's why good writers revise their work. They cut excess, pick stronger nouns and verbs, eliminate redundancies and add information that resonates with readers. Students and professors who fall in love with their drafts and fail to make needed revisions create works that scream "REVISE." As the famous author James Michener quipped, "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter."
The question: Does Sheila know that she must read her work with a critical eye and do the three things that good writers must do: revise, revise and revise?
Transcription
The reason: Children who have physical or related difficulties writing on paper, tablets or computers may well become struggling writers if schools fail to give them proper accommodations, training and support.
The questions: Physically, can Sheila readily put her thoughts on paper, tablet or computer screen? If not, what barriers are impeding her progress? What can be done to eliminate these barriers and help her become adept at transcription? Will she benefit from shorter writing tasks, scribes or speech-to-text software? How can her progress be effectively monitored?
Psychological and social factors
The reason: Directly or indirectly, various psychological and social factors can block writing progress.
The questions: In class, is Sheila's progress blocked by psychological problems like anxiety, attention, focus, impulsivity, working memory, short-term memory and organizational abilities? Is progress blocked by social problems like social competence, peer pressure and goals that undermine educational progress? Do mental-health difficulties, neighborhood pressures or below-average cognitive abilities actively impede her progress?
Cautions
This article offered sample questions, drawn from the literature on writing instruction, learning disabilities and the painful experiences of struggling writers with whom I've worked. Many of these questions may or may not directly relate to your child. And missing are questions about some factors that may significantly influence her progress, like peer support, pace of instruction and managing writing assignments.
But before eliminating any of these questions, parents and evaluators need to examine them and the factors they pinpoint. The reason is straightforward. They identify many common factors that actively cause or intensify the hardships of struggling writers, factors that program planners must identify and understand to effectively remove or minimize barriers to progress. Only by removing or minimizing such barriers, will progress accelerate.
In the follow-up article, I'll explain why writing evaluations often fail to help struggling writers and the actions parents may have to take to get evaluations likely to help their children become proficient, motivated writers.
