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WRITING INSTRUCTION TO SUPPORT LITERACY SUCCESS

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LITERACY RESEARCH, PRACTICE AND EVALUATION

Series Editors: Evan Ortlieb and Earl H. Cheek, Jr.

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LITERACY RESEARCH, PRACTICE AND EVALUATION VOLUME 7

WRITING INSTRUCTION TO SUPPORT LITERACY SUCCESS

EDITED BY

EVAN ORTLIEB

St. John’s University, New York, NY, USA

EARL H. CHEEK, JR.

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

WOLFRAM VERLAAN

University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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First edition 2017

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78635-526-3

ISSN: 2048-0458 (Series)

List of Contributors

About the Editors

Evan Ortlieb (Ph.D.) is Professor and the Coordinator of Literacy Programs at St. John’s University. His academic accomplishments and innovative history include his co-edited book series, Literacy Research, Practice, and Evaluation, along with his publication of more than 100 manuscripts, which substantiate some of his contributions to the field. His research remains on school literacy improvement in diverse and disadvantaged communities worldwide. He is also the founder and active President of the Ortlieb Foundation – a non-profit organization that aims to financially assist those who have been diagnosed with cancer in pursuing their collegiate education through scholarships.

Earl H. Cheek, Jr. (Ph.D.) is Patrick and Edwidge Olinde Endowed Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University. His primary area of expertise is Literacy Education, specifically; assessment, diagnostic-prescriptive, grades 1–12, content reading, struggling readers, and dyslexia. His academic accomplishments include the co-edited book series, Literacy Research, Practice, and Evaluation, and the publication of more than 100 manuscripts including articles, chapters in books, and textbooks. In addition to his publications, he has presented over 100 papers at state, regional, national, and international conferences, and has served as the major professor/dissertation director for 70 Ph.D. students.

Wolfram Verlaan (Ph.D., N.B.C.T.) is Assistant Professor of Literacy and Reading and the Coordinator of the M.Ed. Reading Specialist Program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. As a former middle- and high-school teacher for nine years with a National Board teaching certification (NBCT) in Early Adolescence English/Language Arts, he brings a wealth of knowledge to bear regarding ELA instruction in secondary classrooms. In addition to a research interest in the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension, he is also interested in methods of improving pre-service teacher preparation, effective literacy instruction, and ways to address the literacy achievement gap in the United States between less-advantaged and more-advantaged students.

Introduction

Although writing has always been considered an important component of literacy instruction, writing instruction in many classrooms has frequently been shunted aside to allow instructional time to be devoted to curriculum deemed more immediately important, such as reading, math, and science. Recent initiatives such as the Common Core State Standards, however, have reemphasized the importance of writing by acknowledging that subject matter knowledge is more completely demonstrated and solidified when one is able to cogently communicate one’s thoughts about a given topic via writing. And unlike speaking, writing is not a natural act – students require significant amounts of instruction and practice to develop their writing ability. To that end, this volume, in the book series Literacy Research, Practice, and Evaluation, provides a collection of researched-based instructional practices drawn from the authors’ experiences with writing instruction in primary and secondary school classrooms. The volume’s 15 chapters address a wide scope of writing instructional methods that range from an analysis of successful writing practices employed in primary schools in New Zealand, to engaging ninth-grade students with multimodal writing assignments in US classrooms, to using low-stakes writing assignments to allow teachers to build relationships with and insights into their students as a basis for successful writing instruction. The instructional methodologies employed in these varying contexts are described in detail, and most can be modified for younger or older students to address writing instruction apropos to a given grade range.

Successful writing instruction is never formulaic; it is an iterative process that relies, among other things, on modeling, guidance, feedback, and practice, and it is always contextualized by the social, cultural, and academic milieux in which the instruction occurs. The writing instruction described in this volume affords the reader the opportunity to view both the process and the context of writing instruction through varying lenses and perspectives. Consequently, this volume should be of significant interest to educators, researchers, literacy specialists, and others who are engaged in writing instruction.

Wolfram Verlaan

Co-editor