Self‐Regulated Strategy Development for Developing Writers ...

Self‐Regulated Strategy Development for Developing Writers in Grades 2 ‐ 6

Linda H. Mason, Ph.D.

Pennsylvania State University

CORE Leadership Summit 2009 1

Skilled Writers:

• Organize their goals for writing and can switch flexibly from simple to complex goals.

• Draw upon a rich store of cognitive processes and strategies for planning, text production, and revision to achieve their goals.

• Draw upon their knowledge of the patterns and schemas found in different writing genres or models.

• Develop novel or modified frameworks as the writing task becomes more complex.

• Are sensitive to the functions their writing is intended to serve and the needs and perspectives of their audience.

• Use effective self‐regulation procedures throughout the recursive writing process.

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Challenges Children Face in Writing:

• generating content • organizing their compositions

• formulating goals and higher level plans

• efficiently executing mechanics

• revising text and goals

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Additional challenges for developing writers and students who struggle with learning:

• Lack of important knowledge about writing and the writing process; less aware of how to write

• difficulties generating ideas and selecting topics • often do little advanced planning • engage in “knowledge telling” rather than planning content • difficulties accessing, generating, and organizing the

knowledge they possess; lack strategies to do so • difficulties with mechanics and lower level skills interfere with

the writing process • engage in little revision; more often make simple word changes

or focus on mechanics rather than making meaningful changes to ideas, content or organization

• overemphasize the role of mechanics in explaining “good writing”

• frequently overestimate their writing abilities

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In addition, some students face challenges in affect, behavior, and cognition

• difficulty with self‐regulation of organized, strategic behaviors

• reciprocal relationships among academic failure, self‐ doubts, learned helplessness, maladaptive attributions, unrealistic pre‐task expectancies, low levels of motivation, and so on

• impulsivity, low task engagement and persistence, and memory or information processing difficulties may be evident

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Given this, good writing teachers consider:

• Developing writers and children who face significant challenges benefit from an instructional approach that directly addresses their affective, behavioral, and cognitive characteristics, strengths, and needs

• These children will often require more extensive, structured, and explicit instruction to develop the skills, strategies, and understandings that their peers form more easily

• Ecological variables (including the student’s social, educational, cultural, and systems network) must also be considered

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(c) Copyright 2009 Linda Mason 1

10 Recommendations for Written Expression Instruction for Developing or Low Achieving Students (Harris & Graham, 2003)

1. Provide time for writing, a minimum of 30 minutes daily.

2. Provide a range of writing tasks, starting with what the student knows best.

3. Create a social climate that promotes writing through peer and teacher conferencing.

4. Provide opportunities for writing in all academic content classes.

5. Focus on the writing process.

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6. Focus on high‐order tasks, attending to mechanics during the revision process.

7. Minimize grammar instruction and overemphasis on students’ errors.

8. Explicitly teach the characteristics of good writing, providing examples of and model good writing.

9. Promote higher level composing by teaching skills for strategy use.

10. Teach students to identify and set goals for their own writing.

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Today we will focus on two strategies for writing:

POW + W‐W‐W for Story Writing

POW + TREE for Persuasive Writing

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Please note, it is not the strategies that support learning, learning is supported by the

instructional method! One such evidence‐based approach is SRSD

instruction.

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Self‐Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) Instruction

Developing in Tandem

Powerful Academic Strategies &

Procedures for Self‐Regulation

SRSD developed by: Karen R. Harris & Steve Graham Vanderbilt University

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SRSD instruction includes:

• Mastery of higher level cognitive processes involved in composing;

• Autonomous, reflective, self‐regulated use of effective writing strategies;

• Knowledge of the characteristics of good writing; • Positive attitudes about writing and one’s own capabilities as a writer.

In a word: Expertise 12


Research by Harris, Graham, and Colleagues

n Over 30 intervention studies conducted in the past 25 years

n Students with disabilities (LD, ADHD, EBD, MMR, SLI) who are struggling with writing

n Students without disabilities who are struggling with writing

n Grades 2 – 12, this session will focus on Grades 2 - 6

n Inclusive classrooms, resource, self-contained

n Large group, small group, and one-to-one instruction 13

SRSD: The Data Base • SRSD significantly and meaningfully changes how students

write.

• SRSD significantly and meaningfully changes what students write.

• Self‐efficacy, attitudes, and attributions regarding writing change in positive ways, supporting the writing process.

• Generalization has been achieved across settings, teachers, and writing medium (computer/pencil and paper).

• The most meaningful gains are achieved among students with severe problems when all components (self‐regulation and composing strategies) and all stages of instruction are included.

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Six Stages for Strategy Acquisition

• Develop Background Knowledge • Discuss the Strategy • Model the Strategy • Memorize the Strategy • Support the Strategy (Collaborative and Guided Practice)

• Independent Performance

In addition, • Generalization and Maintenance is supported

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I will describe:

• First, how self‐regulation procedures are imbedded within each strategy acquisition stage • This will include some basic principles for establishing self‐

regulation

• Next, I will describe how strategy acquisition stages and self‐regulation procedures are implemented in lesson plans

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Story Writing

• Who

• When

• Where

• What happened

• What happened next

• How does the story end • How do the characters feel

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• Develop and Activate Background Knowledge

– discuss and explore both writing genre and self‐ regulation strategies to be learned

– begin development of self‐regulation by introducing goal setting

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Goal Setting

Help children set goals that are:

• Specific • Challenging • Proximal

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• Discuss It

– student’s current writing and self‐regulation abilities

– introduce the strategy to be learned: purpose, benefits, how and when it can be used

– introduce self‐monitoring and graphing – obtain a commitment to learn strategy – the role of the student and the role of the teacher

– current negative or ineffective self‐talk, attitudes or beliefs

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Self‐Monitoring

Self‐monitoring occurs when an individual self assesses whether or not a behavior has occurred and then self‐records the results.

Three types of self‐monitoring: • Self‐Monitoring of Attention • Self‐Monitoring of Performance • Self‐Monitoring of Strategy Use*

(Nelson & Hayes, 1981)

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• Model It – collaborative modeling of task and self‐ regulation strategies, include self‐ instructions while modeling

– analyze and discuss strategy and model’s performance; make changes as needed

–model self‐monitoring and graphing of performance

– continue student development of self‐ regulation strategies across tasks and situations; discuss use

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Self‐Instructions

Definition of Self‐Speech:

Speech which is neither intended for, nor effectively adapted for, communication with others. Speech directed to the self which is self‐regulatory. May be overt or covert, voluntary or involuntary. May operate on motor activity, cognitive processing, or perceptual processing.

Six Types of Self‐Instructions

• Problem Definition

• Focusing of Attention and Planning • Strategy Self‐Instructions • Self‐Evaluation and Error‐Correcting • Coping and Self‐Control • Self‐Reinforcement

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• Memorize It – begin memorization of strategy, mnemonic(s), and self‐instructions as appropriate, continue through next stage

– not necessary for all students, use as needed

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• Support It – teachers and students use task and self‐ regulation strategies collaboratively to achieve success

– challenging initial goals established collaboratively; criterion levels increased gradually until final goals met

– prompts, guidance, and collaboration faded individually

– students’ self‐reinforce for meeting goals – discuss plans for maintenance, continue support of generalization

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Self‐Reinforcement

Requires self‐evaluation compared to some criterion. Child must be able to accurately know when self‐reinforcement is warranted.

A powerful self‐regulation procedure

1. Can add meaningfully to goal setting and self‐ monitoring and works naturally with them

2. When combined with other self‐regulation procedures, external reinforcement is not needed for some children.

Self‐Reinforcement

Providing reward:

“I'm getting better at this.”

“I like this ending.”

“Wait until my teacher reads this!”

“Hurray‐I'm done!”

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• Independent Performance

– students able to use task and self‐ regulation strategies independently; teachers monitor and support as necessary

– fading of overt self‐regulation may begin – plans for maintenance and generalization continue to be discussed and implemented

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Additional Plans for Generalization and Maintenance

• Collaborate with other teachers • Establish peer partners for reminding each other to use the strategy

• Practice the strategy with various genres of writing

• Practice the strategy in a variety of settings • Reinforce students for their efforts in using the strategy when they are away from you!

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LET’S FRAME ANOTHER STRATEGY INTO LESSON PLANS

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POW + TREE for Persuasive Writing

• Three versions for emergent and developing writers – POW + TREE with 5 parts – POW + TREE with 8 parts – POW + TREE with 8 parts + a counter reason

– Average grade range: 2nd through middle school

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TOPIC Sentence Tel l what you beli eve!

Yes_________

No_________

Transition Words

R Reasons 3 or More Why do I believe this? Will my readers believe this? Do I have a counter reason? Does it change my belief?

E EXPLAIN Reasons Say more about each reason

E ENDI NG

POW + TREE Prior to instruction:

• Decide what types of prompts to use.

• Obtain writing samples for the genre, in this case writing a persuasive or opinion paper.

• Plan for both the expected and unexpected!

• Remember throughout instruction that lesson plans are recursive. In other words, any lesson can be repeated or revisited at any time.

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Lesson Plan 1 • Discuss it – Introduce POW + TREE – Discuss the strategy using an analogy of a tree (for

example: the reasons are like roots…supporting beliefs)

• Develop Background Knowledge – Tie in strategy steps with other strategies learned – Find essay parts in an anchor essay – Establish prior performance

• Begin Memorization

• Begin Generalization

• Obtain Commitment to Learn Strategy – Set a Goal to learn the strategy 47

Lesson Plan 2

• Continue Memorization and Generalization

• Cognitively Model Using POW + TREE – Include self‐instructions throughout modeling process – Model goal setting, self‐monitoring, and self‐reinforcement

• Introduce/revise Self‐Monitoring

• Develop/revise Self‐Instructions

• Establish a Goal to Use All Parts of POW + TREE

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TREE Graphing Chart Fill in a space for every TREE part

Write # of Transition Words

Date: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Revise

Add to

Or

Start anew

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Lesson Plan 3


• Collaboratively practice POW + TREE

– Use Self‐Instructions

– Set a Goal to Use All Parts of POW + TREE

– Self‐Monitor Performance

– Self‐Reinforce 52

Lesson Plan 4


• Guided Practice of POW + TREE – Use Self‐Instructions

– Set a Goal to Use All Parts of POW + TREE

– Self‐Monitor Performance

– Self‐Reinforce 53

Lesson 5


• Support the strategy to Independent practice by having the students write in a novel setting or to a different prompt.

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Wrap‐Up

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Characteristics of Effective SRSD

• Collaboration and Active Learning • Individualization • Mastery‐Based Pace of Instruction • Anticipatory Instruction • Enthusiasm and a Support Network • Developmental Enhancement • Generalization & Maintenance Planned and Supported

• 10 Principles of Evaluation

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Classroom Evaluation 1. Include Students As Co‐Evaluators 2. Assess Changes in Self‐Regulation and Writing

Performance 3. Assess Changes in Attitudes and Self‐Perceptions 4. Assess During Instruction 5. Assess How Students Actually Use the Self‐

Regulation and Writing Strategies 6. Assess Use Over Time and in New Situations 7. Involve Other Teachers and Family 8. Use Portfolio Assessment Procedures 9. Amount of Evidence Collected Depends on

Established Strategy Effectiveness 10. Be Reasonable

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Tips for Getting Started

• Small is beautiful.

• Begin with and existing, validated strategy. • Collaborate with other professionals.

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Caveats about SRSD:

• Not a panacea; academic and social competence are complex, no single intervention can affect all aspects

• Not necessarily the intervention of choice for all students or at all times

• Demanding on teachers

• Research needs remain

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Thanks for Coming

Dr. Linda H. Mason – [email protected]

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Self‐Regulated Strategy Development for Developing Writers ...

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