Step Back to Improve Independent Writing

There are so many reasons our kids don’t want to write. At the foundational level, when handwriting and spelling skills are weak, kids’ ability and confidence in writing will be affected. That is a given, and worthy of attention.  But there are other tremendously important core factors that lead to lack of motivation and willingness to write with independence. 

When we don’t want to do something, we avoid it like the plague.  Kids are no different. And it’s made all the more challenging when that task is complex.  Which is why motivation is just as important to develop as handwriting and spelling skills. There are lots of ways to do it, and I devote a previous post to the topic of motivation in writing here. Without motivation, we will see little improvement in students’ independent writing.

Showing kids how to write through intentional, clear modeling is another key facet.  Using and creating exemplar texts for teaching is one of the best ways to make it all crystal clear for kids. 

But there’s one more incredibly important factor that is at the heart of improving students’ independent writing.  The good news, just as with motivation and modeling, is it’s something that is completely within teachers’ control. 

It’s to take a step back to let them actually write. Independently.

Yep.  A major factor in helping kids improve their independent writing is for us to know when to step back.

All too often, teachers will walk students through the writing process step-by-step. This means, by and large, that every single child is doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.  While this might sometimes have a  place, it also can very much stifle kids, especially if it’s the norm.  In this approach, much of the choice that is so important  is diminished or even eliminated. 

Students need to have some choice in the way that they construct their writing, their word choice, and sentence structures they include. Of course we’re going to continue to push them to ramp up their work even more, but these are the  kinds of choices real writers make.

Part and parcel of motivation is the idea of student agency. 

“Agency is partially about having choice, and partially about knowing what to do with that choice. It’s about developing and holding onto the sense that one can set achievable goals, persevere, solve problems, overcome obstacles, and find success.”

Jacob Bruno, NWEA, 10/28/21

Writing is huge. From generating an idea to planning what they will say and the way it will be structured, the word choice and voice that they use, all the way to revision and editing, there’s so much going on.  Writing is big. The cognitive demand is high. 

Which is why every writer also needs to have the opportunity to just write, without constant hand-holding. 

In other words, a crucial part of student agency is letting kids show what they really know. Independently. 

It takes a lot of over and over and over practice to become a stronger writer. The time spent and  volume of writing a child produces absolutely reflects their skill level.  Melanie Meehan, Two Writing Teachers writer, says “In order to make growth in writing, whether we are five or fifty, we have to spend a fair amount of time…writing. One of the important components of writing workshop is that students have blocks of independent writing time.”

Which is why of course, we need to prioritize writing and make time for it every single day–not just in “writing time,” but across the day, too. But without actually getting out of the way to see what kids can do without us, we will never know what their actual skill level is.  

This is why it’s so important to have students write a cold piece in whatever genre you’re working on at the beginning of your teaching. It’s all about knowing where your students are so that you know where to take them next. While students may be in third grade, for example, they may be ahead of the third grade curriculum, or they may be far behind. Either way, beginning with third grade lessons may  miss the mark for way too many kids.

When we step back and let kids write independently, we give them time to put their growing understanding of writing into practice.  From that independent writing, we can learn so much.  We learn how well kids are progressing.  And in that, we know how well our teaching is sticking (or not).

Their writing is not likely to look perfect. They’re kids who are learning how to put it all together.  Kids who are learning who they are as writers.  It’s a process.  Not a product. And that’s something every teacher needs to keep in mind. Holding their hands every step of the way sends the message that it’s all about the pretty finished product. 

It’s not about the product.  It’s about the growth.

Growth goes far beyond handwriting, spelling, and  complete sentence writing.  While yes, that’s one lens we can look through to assess a child’s growing writing skills,, there are so many others that we can glean information about.  There’s also organization, clarity, elaboration, and more.  This is something I’ve written about before, so for more on lenses to assess writing, check out this post. 

This means that a beginning of unit or genre assessment of where kids are is absolutely critical. As you guide them through the genre, show them the way, and provide that all important feedback, it’s also important to gauge what they’ve learned at the end of the unit. It is only when we give them the opportunity to apply all that they’ve learned (not just with this kind of writing, but with all writing) without any hand-holding. Our teaching will be evident in student’s independent writing.  We should see evidence of not just the teaching that was done in this unit, but also what we’ve taught up to that point, too.  If we’ve set the right conditions, we’ll see huge growth.

“Value the process over the product. Not everything students produce will be anywhere close to perfect.”

Melanie Meehan, Two Writing Teachers 2/11/18

Unfortunately, what happens time and again is that when teachers collect these cold writes, where they did not step in and did not coach, they’re shocked that what they see in the independent writing samples is nowhere close to what they saw  kids do during the teaching of the unit.

This is a telltale sign that the teacher did far too much hand holding. And it’s a wake-up call.

When we walk kids through every step of the way, tell them exactly what they should be doing next, and even provide things like sentence frames all the way through without removing them, the child has done little to no thinking. No problem-solving.  No consolidating. No learning. The large cognitive demand that is real writing has remained extremely light all the way through. This leaves students ill-equipped to put the pieces together. 

Worse, when we hand-hold every step of the way, we are holding our own assumptions to be true.  We assume all the kids can’t, so we don’t let them try.  It’s all in the name of wanting them to succeed, but in that very limiting practice, we stunt their growth as writers.  This is something my dear friend and writing teacher extraordinaire Melissa Morrison says. She finds that “teachers make decisions based on what they THINK students will do or what they BELIEVE they won’t be able to do.”  

Knowing when to step back to allow kids to show us what they can do, then responding to it with next teaching steps, is totally within our control.  It might mean facing the reality that more teaching needs to be done.  It might mean more time to practice is in order.  

It also might mean our kids are much more capable than we thought.  Let’s stop letting what we assume kids can do be our guide, and actually find out what they’re capable of.

We’ll never know the outcome unless we step back and actually let them write.

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle, a 25-year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!  Writing instruction is my favorite thing to talk about, too.  If you could use some help with writing instruction, simply email me at [email protected] or reach out for a coaching call! I’m here to partner with you to build that foundation of student motivation for writing so your students can realize greater success.

Or, consider joining my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment (really–no blaming or shaming is allowed!)  where you can ask questions, learn ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!